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SOME MEMORIES OF 
OLD HAVERHILL 



Copyright, 1915, by Albert LeRoy Bartlett. 



NOV 12 1915 



4 



t ■ 



'-1*^ 



Mrs. Peggy White Bartlett 

1776 — 1831 



SOME MEMORIES 
OF OLD HAVERHILL 

IN MASSACHUSETTS 



BY 

ALBERT LeROY BARTLETT 



Privately printed and limited to five hundred copies, 
of which this is No. / 



HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS 
MCMXV 



p'-. 



(TO 

CI.A414537 



NOV 12 1915 




SOME MEMORIES OF OLD 
HAVERHILL 

I 

HE door that opens into the room of the 
past is unlocked with the smallest of 
keys, and swings open to the gentlest of 
pressures. A faded silk purse, starred with silver 
beads and infolded at either end by a silver 
sliding ring to hold fast its treasures, lying before 
me brings back from the years that are gone the 
one from whose silken-mitted hand it swung. I 
see her walking adown the fragrant, flowery road 
of a far-away yesterday, her leghorn bonnet with 
a wreath of flowers beneath its brim crowning her 
banded dusky-gold hair, while its broad ribbons are 
tied in an expansive bow beneath her dimpled chin. 
The white Cashmere shawl is draped to disclose 
at the throat the broad lace collar clasped with 
a cameo pin, and the shawl itself is held, where 
its folds meet just below the bosom, by an 
arabesqued bar of gold. The flounced dress swells 
over full petticoats, and touches the ground as 
she moves onward as the wing of the swallow the 



Some Me mories 



wave. Slipping from the folds of the shawl one 
hand supports the little silk parasol, brown or black 
or figured to match the dress, and from the wrist 
soft undersleeves of lace fall back. The other 
hand carries this little netted purse, its colors then 
as bright and fresh as the heart and the dreams of 
her who bore it. He who is at her side wears a bell- 
crowned tall hat. The high dickey beneath his 
strong, clear-cut, smooth-shaven face, is supported 
by a broad black satin stock. The swallow-tail 
coat of severe black rolls away to disclose a bit of 
the figured waistcoat beneath, but fits close over 
muscular shoulders and swells over sinewy arms. 

And the fragrance and the flowers of that road of 
yesterday, its impressions and its memories, break 
upon my senses like waves from the expanse of time, 
rolling in upon the shores of the present and flood- 
ing them over. 

II 

The house wherein I write is full of memories, 
for to it my mother came as a bride to be greeted 
and welcomed by my grandmother and her family 
whose home it had been before, and who henceforth 
w^ere to share it with the new household. One by 
one they all have followed the angel of death out- 
[8] 



Of Old Haverhill 



ward over the portal, and the first-born and the 

second-born, leaving in their places memories and 

visions, — 

" — into the night are gone; 
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on, 
And I alone remain." 

When the house was built it arose amid an or- 
chard of fruit trees. Forty acres of bloom and 
scent lay on the slope between it and the glinting, 
dimpling Merrimac. Peach and plum, pear and 
apple, apricot and quince, in season gave bloom and 
in season fruit. Between it and the town, along 
the river, stretched a short mile of pasture land 
where the violets bloomed and the luscious black- 
berry trailed and myriad swallows built their 
caverned homes in high sand banks. Little the 
builders dreamed that the factory and the tenement 
house would devastate this Arcady, and alien races 
dwell in crowded tenements where then the kine 
chewed the cud of content in sun-kissed but soli- 
tary stretches. 

Ill 

There are heirlooms in the old house, precious to 
him, at least, who lives with them and loves them 
for association's sake. What romances they call 
up! What dreams and ambitions! Youth, look- 

I9] 



Some Me mories 



ing forward; manhood and womanhood, weaving 
strong threads into the fabric of life; old age, — and 
memories! And the romance and the dreams 
reach back two hundred years. Here is china that 
graced my great-grandmother's grandmother's 
table; here some silver, quaintly marked J. ^' S., — 
wedding silver of my great-great-grandmother's, 
married in 1756, — the initials meaning that Sarah 
Longfellow, aged 17, blended her name and her 
fortunes with General Joseph Cilley's. Senator 
Jonathan Cilley, the classmate and friend of Haw- 
thorne and Longfellow, killed in the memorable 
duel with Senator Graves of Kentucky, was her 
grandson. Here are law books of my great-great- 
grandfather, Judge and General Israel Bartlett, 
and of my great-grandfather, Judge and Lieutenant- 
Colonel Thomas Bartlett, imported from London 
in 1745, and bearing their autographs, ^'Israel Bart- 
let, Esq., 1746," and '^Thomas Bartlett's Book, 
1782." Here is the bull's-eye watch which the 
latter of these carried. It may have noted tri- 
umphantly the time of Burgoyne's surrender at Sar- 
atoga, or have marked the anxious hours at West 
Point at the time of Arnold's treachery, for Colonel 
Bartlett was in command of a regiment there. 

Here is the huge old bible with the records of the 
family from 1712 written in it. Here is the tall 
[lo] 



Of Old Haverhill 



clock that ticked solemnly in the house of the 
Greenleafs when Benjamin, the arithmetician, was 
born, and here another, older, that marked time in 
the home of my mother's father. Here is the ma- 
hogany bureau, delicately inlaid, with claw feet and 
swelling front and quaint brass pulls, each em- 
bossed with an American eagle, that held my grand- 
mother's wedding linen, and here the Sheraton 
mirror into which her blushing face looked as she 
arranged the ribbons and laces for her marriage in 
1805. 

Behind this latticed closet door are some three- 
volume novels of the early nineteenth century, 
The Children of the Abbey, Alonzo and Melissa, 
carefully kept from my boyhood range; Bunyan's 
Pilgrim^s Progress, Mrs, Hemans' Poerns, — books 
deemed more suitable for youthful minds, — and old, 
old school books, — the English Reader, printed in 
Haverhill, — and the little girl who read its didactic 
pieces, its argumentative pieces, its selections from 
Milton and Thompson and Pope, was ten years old! 
— the Rhetorical Reader, the Historical Reader, 
Murray^ s Grammar, a Tacitus and other Latin books 
studied at Dartmouth a hundred and more years 
ago. 

What papers have the pigeon holes of these old 
desks held! What potent documents have been 

[ii] 



Some Me mories 



written here in the clearest of hands, the ink as it 
flowed from the quill sanded to dry its exuberance! 

How often has this old brick oven yielded 
bounties of New England cooking! How many 
times has the old crane in the fireplace held its bur- 
den of steaming kettles! How often in the still 
hours of the evening have the family sat about the 
tiled hearth, dreaming of the promise of coming 
days or recalling the fortunes of the past, the glow 
of the logs giving light, and the housewife, whose 
hands could not be idle, evoking the music of the 
whirring spinning wheel. And the old Dutch motto 
set in the hearth is ''TFo euer schaz ist, da ist audi euer 
Hertz/' — Where the treasure is, there is also the 
heart. Dear days of yore, whose argosies were 
moored in the safe harbor of home! 

Sometimes sitting here alone, in memory I hear 
again the old stories and ballads told in the sweetest 
voice that ever fell upon my ears, or the melodies 
of the songs of long ago, — Lady Washington's La- 
ment, Mary o' the wild moor, Bonnie Dundee. Was 
it so long, so very long ago that the first gift of 
books was put into my hands, the stories of Fran- 
conia and of Beechnut, by Jacob Abbott? And is 
that day, that golden day, so very far in the past, 
when, O wonderful gift! — two little volumes in red, 
A Child's History of England, by Charles Dickens, 
[iz] 



Of Old Haverhill 



first led me into the wonderful, entrancing world of 
history? Grateful beyond words am I for that 
quiet, gentle leading that brought me into the 
kingdom of good literature and taught me to find 
enjoyment in the common things that lie within the 
reach of the humblest and the poorest, — 

'' — tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing ^ 

So the past is to me like a meadow full of flowers 
varied in form and hue, sweetlj'- odorous all, — and 
out of this abundant bloom I gather but a bou- 
quet. 

IV 

A brilliant woman of Washington who had long 
had a prominent place in the highest society there, 
was speaking of the heart burnings, the petty dis- 
tinctions, the quarrels over precedence, in which 
not only the ladies but the men took part. ''Tell 
your mistress," said a distinguished jurist to the 
servant of the lady whose guest he was, indignant 
that another than himself had the chief honor of 
escorting her to dinner, 'Tell your mistress that 
Justice Blank has been here and has gone . " "I have 
been visiting in the academic town of A — ," she 
added, "where I lived some years ago; and I have 

[13] 



Some Me movies 



been somewhat awed by the encroachments of 
style there. One had a single serving maid when I 
lived there, but now she must have a retinue, and 
the old neighborly freedom has been frozen by the 
icy conventions of modern society." Better is a 
dinner of herhs where love is, than a stalled ox and 
hatred therewith. More dear than magnificence pur- 
chased by the sacrifice of friendly feeling is such a 
simple neighborhood tea as my mother used to give, 
whereat she was oftimes both cook and server, 
when the best china — the old Lowestoft or the 
blue-sprigged — was brought forth from the parlor 
cupboard, and the repast was as simple as it was 
delicious, — biscuits golden brown but white within 
and light as the heart of youth, butter the gift of 
kine that fed on flowery meads, honey distilled by 
the bees of Hymettus, cake with the permeating 
flavor of spices and fruits, to which time had added 
the bouquet, and tea that Hebe might have served 
to the gods. And in my Cranford the atmosphere 
was clean, and the talk on worthy subjects, and the 
English pure and undefiled, and the kettle on the 
hearth sang cheerily. 

A dear aunt of mine, the youngest and last of her 
generation, used often to say as she recalled the 
Haverhill of her girlhood, ''How sweet the birds 
sang, how fair the flowers were, how beautiful the 

[14] 



Of Old Haverhill 



world seemed when youth and hope and happiness 
dwelt in the heart." In her more than four-score 
years she had seen the old home, which is my home, 
successively heated by open fireplaces, by wood 
stoves, by furnace-heated air, by steam, and by 
hot water; she had seen it lighted by candles, by 
lamps for whale oil and for spirits and for kerosene, 
by gas and by electricity. She had seen the lumber- 
ing stage coach supplanted by the steam railway 
and its energetic rival, the electric tram. A host 
of modern inventions had multiplied the needs and 
increased the complexities of life. She had seen the 
transformation of a typical New England communi- 
ty into a city that retains few of its old character- 
istics and — alas! — remembers few of its old tradi- 
tions; she had seen the population change from one 
of almost unmingled English ancestry to one where- 
in are commingled many nationalities, and a Cafe 
degli Dura V Abruzzi invite patronage where the 
degenerate descendants of the Indians last pitched 
their wigwams. And when she would ask me, 
laughing and knowing full well that it was all before 
my time, if I remembered the scare of the spectral 
sow who nightly emerged from beneath ^Svitch 
bridge," and ' 'lovers' rock with the drooping 
willow above" that was a trysting place sixty years 
ago, the Christian Chapel riot, the bars that opened 

[is] 



Some Me mories 



from Emerson's field into Washington square and 
the quest for the buried chest of gold there, or her 
own great uncle, Israel Bartlett, who was the last to 
wear the queue, small clothes and silver buckles in 
the streets of Haverhill, I could only answer, "I 
remember them as twice-told tales that never lose 
their charm." 

V 

I live on the road leading ''from Jonathan Shep- 
ard's past Simon Ayer's," or so the old deed of my 
farm, given in 1790, describes it, and on Silver Hill, 
for so another deed locates it; and the last of the 
Silvers was the occasional companion and the con- 
stant terror of my boyhood. He lived in a little, 
black, gambrel-roofed house, the cellar of which still 
exists on the hill opposite the site of the old Bowley 
school, now Silver Hill Terrace. Beside his house 
was a tree hung with all manner of iron fruit, chains, 
bars, huge anchors, the relics of a sea-faring life. 
He was spare, grizzly, and to my youthful eyes the 
personification of extreme old age. When the wind 
blew from the south he was mild and full of pleasant 
recollections; but when the penetrating east wind 
blew and stirred rheumatic pains, and his thin legs 
were wrapped outside his trousers with red flannel, 
he was a very gattling gun of profanity. But he 
[i6] 



Of Old Haverhill 



told me many a tale of Indian times, tales that his 
father had told him and his father had told him, for 
he was of old Haverhill ancestry. Over old cellars, in 
some of which sturdy trees had grown to full size, 
he rebuilt — in imagination — the rude houses that 
once rose there, and summoned back the settlers 
whose homes they were. Across the road from my 
house there was one of these cellars. Some plum 
trees grew overhanging it, and by its almost buried 
walls rue and rosemary still survived. In the dread 
times of Indian warfare, so he told me, the dwellers 
there, looking out of the little windows of the house, 
saw in the murky darkness the stealthy approach 
of the savages. Just a flutter of light here and there 
disclosed their presence. The bold little garrison 
loaded their blunderbusses and fired away, only to 
discover when morning broke that they had riddled 
the goodwife's washing, which had been spread on 
some brush to dry, and which a gentle wind had 
made seem creatures of life and danger. 

Ayer street and Varnum street mark the domain 
of another quaint and crotchety veteran of my boy- 
hood, Varnum Ayer, and Ford street turned into 
house-lots the gardens of my great uncle. Colonel 
Ebenezer Ford, whom I remember as always wear- 
ing the old-fashioned dress coat that well befitted 
his stately and dignified presence. Opposite his home 

[17] 



Some Me mories 



dwelt ''Old Sloe," — Rufus Slocumb, who earlier kept 
a tavern on Merrimack street, a short distance west 
of Main street, and who, before the coming of the 
railroad, was the freighter of goods to and from Bos- 
ton. He began this business in 1818, and in 1835 
he kept forty horses and two yoke of oxen constant- 
ly employed in the business, and his large covered 
wagons almost literally lined the road from Haver- 
hill to Boston. In one day in 1836 he had full loads 
for forty-one horses and eight oxen. In his old age 
when I knew him he could dance like a cotillion 
master, he could swear like old Silver, and he had a 
shrill, raucous voice that, like that of Whitefield the 
apostle of Methodism, could be heard a mile. 
Small, thin, he was full of intensity and activity, 
and with a grim sense of humor and unfearing de- 
termination he played no trifling part in the history 
of the town. 

In August, 1835, the Rerverend Samuel J. May, 
having preached in the First Parish Church on 
Sunday morning, desired to give an anti-slavery 
address in the evening. For this purpose he 
found no hall open to him except the Christian 
Union Chapel, where the Hotel Webster now stands 
on the corner of Washington and Essex streets. 
The lecture room was in the second story of the 
building and was reached by two flights of stairs 
[l8] 



Of Old Haverhill 



on the outside of the building. Mr. May was at- 
tended by Elizabeth Whittier, a sister of the poet, 
and Harriet Minot, both young ladies of great 
courage and high spirit. A mob assembled and 
tried to break up the meeting. Failing by lesser 
means to accomplish their purpose, they drew up 
before the building a loaded cannon. It was their 
intention to tear away the outside stairs, fire the 
cannon, and by a panic bring disaster to those 
within the Chapel. But into the midst of the mob, 
alone and unarmed there rushed "Old Sloe," blaz- 
ing with anger, and with mighty oaths flung forth 
by his stentorian voice he scattered the cowardly 
mob and frustrated their design. 



VI 

When I went to the old Washington street 
school, located just below Railroad square, the road 
leading from what is now the junction of Washing- 
ton and River streets to the top of the hill was mere- 
ly a cut bounded by sand banks on either side. We 
followed a path on the top of the southern bank, 
now entirely removed, and, like young barbarians, 
practiced our skill in shooting stones into the chim- 
neys of the houses below in the "Burrough." I do 
not think that it ever occurred to us that the rattl- 
[i9l 



Some Me mories 



ing of these missiles on the roof, the well sent stone 
that actually went down the chimney or the one, 
unskilfully shot, that merely broke a window, 
were really unpleasant to the dwellers. What we 
liked was the adventure; to see from our heights the 
men rush out like hornets, the swift retreat, the 
mad — very mad — pursuit; and the thrill of watch- 
ing from some secure hiding place the angry foe go 
by. The Burrough, — Frinkshorough, — was a settle- 
ment lying along the river bank and under 
the hill where River street now begins. It had 
an unsavory reputation, although some worthy 
people dwelt there. Its manners were its own, 
and its code of morals was not strict. There 
dwelt — 

" Chipbird, Tinker, Poker, Poopey-eye, Shag and Bum, 
Big Liz, Little Liz, Big Burrough, Little Burrough, 
and many a jug o'rum," 

as an old rh3^me ran. A century and more ago a 
visitor spoke of the Burrough-ites as ^'being em- 
ployed on the river instead of farming, and having 
the distinguishing vices of looseness, intemperance, 
and want of punctuality in business." In the 
Carrier's Address, January 1, 1828, Whittier 
excepts this section from the vale of the Merrimack 
that he loves: — 

[201 



0/ Old Haverhill 



" — blent with every chord 
That in a heart of deepest feeling thrills, 

Is the green vale where Merrimack's stream is poured 
Through the wild vista of its neighboring hills. 

All's dear to me quite up and down the river 

With one exception, — Frinksborough, — however." 

One death in the Burrough occasioned a tribute 
from Whittier. There was brought to Haverhill and 
exhibited in Frinksborough in 1832, an Ichneumon, 
an animal of the weasel family sometimes called 
Pharaoh's rat. This animal was domesticated in 
Egypt, and ranked among the divinities on account 
of its utility in destroying serpents, small vermin, 
and the eggs of the crocodile. Three young ladies, 
among them Harriet Minot, went under Whittier's 
escort to see the exhibited specimen, but it had died 
and been buried before their arrival. The facile 
pen of the poet, however, wrote its elegy: — 

" Thou hast seen the desert steed, 
Mounted by his Arab chief, 
Passing like some dream of speed, 
Wonderful and brief! 

And the mirage thou hast seen, 
Ghttering in the sunny sheen, 
Like some lake in sunhght sleeping, 
Where the desert wind was sweeping, 
And the sandy column ghding 
Like some giant onward striding. 



[21] 



Some Me mories 



Once the dwellers of thy home 

Blessed the path thy race had trod, 

Ejieeling in a templed dome 
To a reptile god. 

Thou, unhonored and unknown, 

Wand'rer o'er the mighty sea! 
None for thee have reverence shown, 

None have honored thee! 
Here in vulgar Yankee land 
Thou hast passed from hand to hand. 
And in Frinksborough found a home. 
Where no change can ever come! 
What thy closing hours befell 
None may ask, and none can tell." 

It was westward of the Burrough and along by 
the river that the sunny stretches lay where the 
swallow built and the blackberry bloomed and fruit- 
ed and the earliest vernal flowers heralded the 
spring. There, a little lad of ten, I was wandering 
alone, gathering hepaticas and violets, singing, con- 
scious neither of care nor of fear, when from a shaded 
ambush there sprang suddenly upon me a boy 
ruffian who, with the most frightful language, 
tortured me, beat me on the head with a sharp 
stone — I still bear the scars — , and dragged me 
to the water's edge with the intention of throw- 
ing me into the deep river. Something, I know not 
what, made him turn and run, and I, drenched with 
blood, exhausted with pain and fright, dragged my- 



Of Old Haverhill 



self to safety, narrowly escaping being a victim of 
that lust for cruelty that a few years later was mani- 
fested in the Bussey woods tragedy and the crimes 
of Jesse Pomeroy. 

VII 

The old Washington street school which I attend- 
ed was swept away in that growth of the city west- 
ward that transformed lower Washington street 
from a village road with dwelling houses on either 
side, into a wind-swept tunnel lying between rows 
of tall shoe factories. The building, a two-story 
brick one, was in a yard that extended from Wash- 
ington street to Wingate, its outer bounds a high, 
prison-like, brown board fence. When we had 
finished the primary work under some gentle 
woman teacher in the lower room, we were sent up- 
stairs to be instructed in the grammar branches by 
a master and his assistant. The desks in the mas- 
ter's room were double, and fortune placed me, 
when first I reached that room, as seat mate to the 
worst boy in school. The master was a man of 
might and muscle named ''Jake" Smith, and daily, 
at least, he came with black and threatening frown 
down the aisle to sieze my seat mate by his shoul- 
ders, drag him across the desk, and over my shiver- 
ing form lay on resounding blows. Then, when 
[*3] 



Some Me mories 



Master Smith went up the aisle, the "worst boy" 
would threaten, in blood-curdling language, the 
most horrible revenge. No dime novel pirate ever 
had greater command of the things that horrify 
and the words that shock. A sense of humor, the 
play of sunshine on waters that else were leaden, 
that has always lightened life, relieved much the 
horror of those days, but the ache of the child's 
heart still reaches over the many years that lie be- 
tween then and now. The little white-headed boy 
who met the threat of the teacher to seat him with 
the girls by exclaiming, ''Oh why not let me go 
now?" who tried to comfort the music master whose 
appeal to the scholars to sing so loud as to raise the 
roof had been met by the feeblest response, by 
pointing a little finger towards a weak place in the 
ceiling and saying, "I think I see a crack," has 
found, however, that the gentle humor that wounds 
not, that is so clean that it might be uttered in the 
white halls of Heaven, ''bars," as the servant in the 
Taming of the Shrew says, " a thousand harms, and 
lengthens life." 

When this school building was dedicated in Dec- 
cember, 1849, Dr. James R. Nichols, later the dis- 
tinguished scientist and the scholarly editor of the 
Journal of Chemistry ^ read a poem. Here is an ex- 
tract from it: — 



Of Old Haverhill 



"The teacher asked, 'How many rods a mile?' 
And as the youngster paused a gentle smile 
Relaxed his boyish features, and with eye 
Fixed on the birch, he ventured to reply : 
* How many rods a mile? I cannot tell ; 
But this one feeling truth I know full well', 
— A truth we all must learn sooner or later — 
*It takes but just one rod to make an acher.' " 

The dread days of the Civil War went by while I 
was a grammar school boy, and the scenes of its 
pomp and pathos passed before my eyes. Up Wash- 
ington street marched the home troops on the way 
to the railway station, and down the street, worn, 
weary and broken, they passed on their return. What 
cheers we gave them! how reverently we followed 
them ! how we envied them ! Carl Messer, riding 
on the noble steed that his townsmen had given him ; 
Colonel Jones Frankle, proudly bearing the sword 
inscribed ''Be just and merciful, "that his confident 
friends had entrusted to him. The martial spirit 
was in the school; the boys wore soldier caps; the 
girls with their own hands made the flag that swung 
before the school; from the button holes of our 
little jackets hung the emblems of our loyalty, — I 
still have mine, a little medal with the picture of 
Lincoln on one side and of Hamlin on the other, 
which my mother tied in with a little blue ribbon as 
she told me that I must be a loyal little Lincoln lad, 

Us] 



Some Me mories 



— and woe to the one who was not enthusiastically 
and devotedly patriotic! There was a little lad in 
the primary department — Charles Oscar Wallace — 
with the usual grime and tousel of the small boy 
on his hands and face and hair. He went to 
the recruiting office to enlist. "Can you write?'^ 
asked the Captain. ''No," was his reply, ''but I 
can fight like h — 11." And when he came back to 
school — such is the hero-worship of youthful minds 
— we saw not the grime nor the tousel, but only a 
shining hero with the halo of daring over his head. 
Of the spirit of sacrifice of our elders I think there 
is no more tender evidence than this: when Clarence 
Woodman, an idolized youth, slain in the conflict, 
was brought home for burial, one of the papers of 
the town quoted as the spirit in which the dearest 
were given for the life of the Nation, these patriotic 
and pathetic lines from Cato : — 

*' Thanks to the gods! my boy has done his duty! 
Welcome, my son! There, set him down, my friends, 
Full in my sight that I may view at leisure 
The bloody corpse, and count those glorious wounds. 
How beautiful is death when earned by virtue! 

Who would not be that youth! what pity 'tis 
That we can die but once to save our country! 
Why sits this sadness on your brow, my friends? 
I should have blushed if Cato's house had stood 
Secure and flourished in a civil war." 



[26] 



Of Old Haverhill 



For some years the circus pitched its single tent 
on Wingate's field, the land between Wingate and 
Granite streets just back of the school, and on such 
days, though our eyes might be on our books, our 
real selves followed the clown or the strident calliope 
about the streets, or in imagination witnessed the 
fairyland that the canvas hid from our actual gaze. 

Advancing trade displaced the old dwellings of 
Washington street that were within neighborly dis- 
tance of the school house. Some were torn down, 
some were moved back, some were burned in the 
great Haverhill fire of 1882, and some journeyed to 
new neighborhoods. Next to the schoolhouse, on 
the east, was a house kept immaculate by its mis- 
tress. The garden back of it bore fruit tempting to 
the eyes on the other side of the board fence. But 
the house stood prim and proud, and a bit disdain- 
ful of its neighbor with the swarming school child- 
ren. The day of its ill fortune broke upon it. 
Moved to the junction of Washington and River 
streets, as if broken in spirit it became at first 
shabby, then somewhat dilapidated, and then, as if 
abandoning all pride, it went to complete ruin in a 
debauch of dirt and neglect. And have I not seen 
in human lives, ''so weary with disasters, tugg'd 
with fortune," such downward course with ever in- 
creasing speed to Ruin? 

U7I 



Some Me mories 



VIII 

Little river was originally the West river, and 
northeast of its junction with the Great river — the 
Merrimac — was the site of the village of the Pen- 
tucket Indians, Pentucket meaning '^the place by 
the winding river." When Washington on his mem- 
orable visit to Haverhill, November 4-5, 1789, stood 
here by the junction of the greater and the lesser 
streams — 

** And he said, the landscape sweeping 
Slowly with his ungloved hand, 
'I have seen no prospect fairer 
In this goodly eastern land, ' " — 

a little bridge, twenty feet wide, spanned the smaller 
stream, and the view up and down the Merrimac 
was unobstructed. When as a school boy I went 
my way to the old High School — now the Whittier 
School — the north side of W^ashington square was 
open, and here I was wont to lean over the railing to 
watch the waters of Little river dimple and 
sparkle as they flowed beneath the overhanging 
trees, or the gundelows that had brought up the 
fragrant salt hay from the Salisbury marshes, or the 
swift swirling waters when the spring floods swelled 
the peaceful stream to an angry torrent. Some- 
times on Sundays I stood with the reverent throng 

[28] 



Of Old Haverhill 



on the south side of the square and watched the 
rites of baptism as those who followed the old 
Christian custom were immersed in the clean and 
cleansing waters of the Merrimac. On the north- 
west corner of the square, where the Hotel Webster 
now is, stood the Christian Union Chapel, after- 
wards the South Church. For many years the 
minister of this church was Elder Henry Plummer, 
a man of noble countenance and commanding form, 
who in all the years of his preaching never received 
a regular salary, believing that there should be no 
bargaining about the proclaiming of the gospel, and 
relying for his support upon the free-will offerings 
of his people. He believed, too, that the true 
message of the preacher was directly given by God, 
and that to make careful preparation, especially to 
write a sermon, implied doubt of the Inspirer. I 
have seen him rise in the pulpit and say, ''Brethren, 
the word has not been given me," and then the 
meeting became one of prayer and testimony by the 
brothers and sisters. He became an earnest be- 
liever in the extreme Advent doctrine, and on one 
occasion when an excited meeting of kindred be- 
lievers was being held in his own home and ail 
seemed to expect immediate ascension to Heaven, 
his witty but somewhat impatient wife called to her 
youngest daughter, ''Run, Abbie! hist the scuttle 

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and let 'em go up." When Elder Pike, of Newbury- 
port, appeared in the pulpit in exchange, everyone 
was on the alert, for he was one whose quaint utter- 
ances now moved to tears and now provoked to 
laughter, and his swift shafts of wit spared not the 
individual members of his audience. ''If those 
who wrote the scriptures were not inspired by God," 
he said once, ''they were no better than — ," — here 
his eyes searched the congregation, — "than — you 
are, Brother R — , and the Lord knows you ain't 
any better than you ought to be," and the brethren, 
swift in response, cried "Amen! Amen! that's gospel 
truth!" In later years a minister temporarily oc- 
cupied the pulpit, who had the peculiarity of never 
hearing a long word without being possessed to use 
it in his next sermon. A pupil studying aloud once 
used the word parallelopipedon in his presence. 
He, knowing nothing of the terms of mathematics, 
appropriated the word as the name of some mon- 
strous animal, and his next Sunday's discourse con- 
veyed the startling assertion that "the sinner would 
hear his doom with the awful fear produced by the 
roar of the parallelopipedon in the aboriginal 
forests of Africa." 

If quaint characters sometimes occupied the pul- 
pit, still quainter occupied the pews. One sat in 
the pew directly in front of mine, and made person- 

[30] 



Of Old Haverhill 



al the vivid descriptions of the wicked given by the 
minister by turning round and pointing her long 
fore-finger at me and such chums of mine as were 
with me, saying, ''That's you, and you, and YOU." 
There was another, strangely lame like Vulcan 
whose gait convulsed the gods on Olympus, as 
ugly in feature as Victor Hugo's Quasimodo, his 
lengthy prayers but prolonged groanings, his testi- 
monies but strange and ludicrous malapropisms. 
''The preacher spoke so suffectingly there wasn't a 
dry tear in the house," he said once. "Sinners, 
what'll you think when you wake up and find your- 
selves dead?" he would ask. "I've got some good 
nieces, all girls," he would explain. Late in life he 
married one who was the negative of all charms of 
character and person, a union brought about by 
some practical joker. "Mary Ann," he said as 
they came from the minister's after the ceremony, 
"you go on one side of the street and I'll go on 
t'other. 'Taint assembly for us to walk together." 

While I mention these oddities I am not forget- 
ful of the many sweet, humble Christian lives that 
hallowed the old church and made its influence in 
the town a helpful and uplifting one. 

In the earlier days Washington square was some- 
times flooded when the spring snows, melting, swell- 
ed the river, but the highest flood was on March 15, 

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1846. The ice, breaking up in the river, had form- 
ed a dam at Bradley's falls, a mile above the village, 
twenty feet high. This suddenly gave way and the 
huge mass of water swept down upon the village. 
At Washington square it rose twenty-three feet 
above highwater mark, swept the bridge away and 
down to Artichoke creek, and surrounded the church 
in which the worshipers were holding their Sabbath 
evening service. The old hymn which they so of- 
ten sung, ''We are out on the ocean sailing to a home 
beyond the tide," was made almost literally true 
as the boats took them from the water-beleaguered 
church across the swelling and tumultuous flood to 
safety. 

In the middle of the square was erected in 1857 a 
flag-staff 183 feet high, and when, after ten years 
standing, this was cut down, it was replaced by one 
200 feet high. Here was the scene of many a smart 
contest as the fire engines vied with one another in 
the height to which the streams of water could be 
sent, the men crying as they worked the pumps, 
''Break-'er-down! Break-'er-down! Break-'er- 
down!" 

The land where the post office now stands was 
part of the two hundred acres given as pasture land 
to the Reverend John Ward, and until it was sold to 
the United States in 1892 no deed of it had been 

[32] 



Of Old Haverhill 



passed for more than two hundred years. In 1883 
the stone arch covering Little river was extended 
from the street line to the Merriinac river front. 
Here about an acre and a quartei of land was made 
by filling, and when the Park Commission was es- 
tablished in 1890, it was turned over to them for im- 
provement. And here the Park Commission began 
its work in 1890, with the simple equipment of a 
wheelbarrow, a hoe and a broom. Here of the de- 
sert has been made a place of beauty and fragrance 
and rest. The valuation of this land is about 
$325,000, and the cry has sometimes been heard 
that it should be sold; yet how infinitely poorer 
we should be with this money in our treasury but 
with this restful and delightful oasis Jn the busiest 
part of our city forever covered with piles of gloomy 
brick. 

" A thing of beauty is a joy forever; 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breath- 
ing." 

In 1849 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack 
Rivers, by Henry D. Thoreau, was published, but 
it met an unappreciative reception. To obtain the 
money which its publication required the author 
was obliged to use his ability as a land surveyor. 

[33] 



Some Me niories 



In this avocation he surveyed for the heirs of Cap- 
tain Emerson of Haverhill the old Emerson farm, 
extending from Winter street to Washington 
square. Within this tract there was a beautiful 
grove adjoining Little river and sunny meadows 
lay contiguous. Long ago, in Indian warfare times, 
this land was owned by Captain Simon Wainwright. 
He was killed in the memorable raid of August 29, 
1708, but a tradition lingered that he had buried a 
chest of gold on the farm, and treasure hunters 
often in days gone by have dug within the confines 
of this land, and especially with ardor and hope 
near an old oak tree that stood by the bars that led 
from Emerson's field into Washington square. 

IX 

Through the parsonage lands Front street, called 
Merrimack street in 1837, was laid out two-and- 
a-half rods wide in 1744. The land where so 
many beautifdJ shops now exist was an alder swamp, 
and the first attempts to pave the street failed be- 
cause of the insecure foundation. When the first 
Baptist church was built in 1766 on '^Baptist hill," 
on the site now occupied by the Academy of Music, 
its location marked the extreme western end of the 
village. This first edifice is seen in the oldest pic- 

[34] 



Of Old Haverhill 



ture of Haverhill, that made in 1815. A second 
building replaced it in 1833, and the third structure, 
the one with the towering steeple familiar in pictures, 
built in 1848 and torn down in 1872, filled the more 
than a century of Baptist worship here. The strong- 
ly antagonistic feeling of denomination against 
denomination, happily now almost lost, in the 
earlier days is shown by the address of dedication 
of the third house, November 8, 1849: ''This society 
in its earlier days, like all others, sprang up from the 
tyrannical spirit of the boasted Puritans, whose car 
of Juggernaut undertook to crush under its wheels 
all who did not worship the Savior of mankind 
according to their dictates." On the same oc- 
casion the pastor, contrasting its Gothic tower with 
the beautiful Corinthian spire of the Bradford 
church, said, ''It is a source of great gratification 
that this church has been constructed on correct 
Christian principles, in contrast to the pagan temple 
on the other side of the river." But out from the 
verdant beauty of surrounding trees the white 
Corinthian spire of the "pagan temple" still rises, a 
"silent finger pointing up to heaven," while the 
Gothic structure has been long replaced by a play- 
house. 

Of the lack of Christian amity between brethren 
of the same church there are many true stories. 

bs] 



Some Me mories 



In one of the Haverhill churches a constant atten- 
dant was Mr. Butters, an excellent man of very im- 
pressive manner, who used to go up the aisle to his 
pew carrying a beautiful gold-headed cane and 
supporting his elegantly-dressed wife on his arm. 
In the same church was Cornelius Jenness, a man 
of witty devises, sharp tongue, and many animosi- 
ties, born, as someone once said, ''otherwise minded." 
Mr. Butters had in some way offended Mr. Jenness, 
and so on the next Sunday as in characteristic 
state he went up the aisle, he was immediately 
folowed by Mr. Jenness, carrying in exact mimicry 
a stick with a huge door knob on it, and supporting 
on his arm his withered, bent and shabbily dressed 
housekeeper. 

A bar, a stumbling block, a perpetual veto, this 
"otherwise minded" brother was the subject of 
frequent prayer. In one evening service a zealous 
member earnestly implored the Lord to make bro- 
ther Jenness more amenable, more in harmony, 
more pliable, or, if this seemed impossible, merci- 
fully to remove him. And Cornelius arose and 
said, "I won't go." 

Farther down the street and a little west of Fleet 
street was a stately old mansion with its yard and 
stable, built by Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall in 1789. 
Dr. Saltonstall was a younger half-brother of Colonel 

[36] 



Of Old Haverhill 



Richard Saltonstall whose home was the Button- 
woods, on Water street. On the death of his father 
in 1756, when he was ten years old, he was received 
into the family of his uncle, Meddlecott Cooke, Esq., 
of Boston. Here he grew up in sympathy with the 
patriots, and was thus estranged from his Haverhill 
relatives, who were tories. He inherited in Boston 
the land on School street on which the City Hall 
now stands. This land he sold, and with the pro- 
ceeds he built the mansion house in Haverhill. He 
married Anna, daughter of Squire Samuel White. 
His daughter Sarah married Isaac R. How, Esq., 
the grandfather of the late Gurdon How and of the 
late Mrs. Susan How Sanders. In 1871 the house 
was moved to a beautiful location north of Lake 
Saltonstall, where it still stands, retaining in its in- 
ward and outward appearance its colonial dignity 
and beauty. 

The old shipyard between Merrimack street and 
the river was a place of great delight to the boys of 
seventy years ago. As this was a generation before 
my time I borrow a description of it from the grace- 
ful pen of one who knew well the Haverhill of that 
early day, Dr. John Crowell: — 



Just below the "Baptist Hill," 
Sloping towards the river side, 
Where rolls today the busy tide 

[37] 



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Of labor's ceaseless ebb and flow, 

The ship-yard stood — we knew it well; 

I almost think I see it still, 

With shapeless timber and smoking tar; — 

The hewer with his broad axe armed. 

Hewing away with measured sweU, 

From Bradford shore that echoed far. 

O, what deUght to the dreamy boy 

To creep and chmb o'er the staging tall. 

Deeming it then his highest joy 

To watch the growth of the mammoth side 

Of the noble ship, as day by day 

The steaming planks encased her bows 

That swelled aloft in graceful pride. 

And now the calkers fill up the seams 

With oakum and tar, till all her beams 

And decks and hatches are water tight. 

Behold, upon the shaven side, 

The painter, drawing in brilliant rows 

The rainbow hues in living Hght, 

That soon shall show upon the tide. 

When she has kissed her native sea. 

• ••••• 

O, speed the ship, as down she floats 
Through shallow stream to meet the sea! 
O, welcome her with peaceful notes, 
For, lo! she comes to dwell with thee, — 
With thee, old Ocean, till her sides 
Are dim and worn with storm and brine 
And ceaseless ebb and flow of tides! 

I close my eyes; the vision fair 

Comes like some dim, half vanished dream; 

The ship-yard rises, and the throng 

That shouted in the Autumn air. 

When the fair ship first kissed the stream, 

[38] 



Of Old Haverhill 



Make music like a childhood song. 
Old voices come with saintly swell; 
My dream is gladdened with the sight 
Of far-off faces, and the night 
Is mellow with the pensive note, 
So silver sweet, of "Baptist beU;" 
I hear the cadence gently float — 
The sounds of childhood sadly sweet 
In melting tones my senses greet." 



X 



For eighty years the old Haverhill bridge was a 
DQore or less picturesque feature of the town. Built 
in 1794, and then without covering, it was consider- 
ed a marvel of strength and, with its graceful lines 
and its white gleaming woodwork, a structure of ex- 
ceeding beauty. Its early appearance has been pre- 
served for us by a sketch drawn by Robert Gilmor 
of Baltimore, a young man who made in 1797 a 
journey extending as far east as Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire. Returning he stopped in Haverhill 
for a few hours. The manuscript journal of his 
leisurely journey is in the Boston Public Library. 
In it he speaks of Haverhill as a particularly pleas- 
ant and beautiful little village, and he describes the 
bridge as follows: * 'Across this river (the Merri- 
mac) is thrown one of the new constructed bridges 
like that of Piscataqua, only this has three arches 

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Some Me mories 



instead of one, and the work which supports the 
whole is above instead of being just below the bridge. 
I had time enough before dinner to step to the 
water's edge and take a sketch of it. While I 
stood there, with my drawing book laid upon a pile 
of plank which happened to be convenient, and in- 
tent on my work, I did not perceive the tide which 
rose very fast, and on looking down perceived my- 
self up to my ankles in the river. The water rose 
so gradually that I did not feel it." 

(Robert Gilmor, a young man of wealth, born in 1774 and 
hence twenty-three years old when this journey was made, was 
of such eminent family that in his travels he had admittance 
to the best society. He called in Philadelphia on the Vis- 
count de Noailles, and was the guest while in that city of the 
wealthy Mr. Bingham. He called upon the artist Gilbert 
Stuart at Germantown, and found him engaged upon a copy — 
the first that he made — of the celebrated full length portrait 
of Washington, the original of which he had made for Mr. 
Bingham for presentation to the Marquis of Lansdowne. 
The copy that he was making was to be the personal property 
of Mr. Bingham, and Stuart told Gilmor that he had orders 
for as many copies at $600 each as would bring him $60,000. 
Stuart then had the appearance of a man who drank much, 
his face being red and bloated. Gilmor visited Mr. Craigie 
in Cambridge at the Craigie House, and in Boston he was an 
invited guest at the pubhc dinner in Fanueil Hall to President 
Adama.) 

If it had its season of graceful and fair youth 
when our great grandmothers and great grand- 

[40] 



Of Old Haverhill 



fathers were the belles and beaux of the town and 
leaned over its rails to watch the sparkling river, 
whispering love's lightsome messages to the rythmic 
flow of the tide, it had also a period of sturdy strength 
when time had turned its beams to a mellow brown 
and it wore the protection of a roof, when Slocomb's 
freight wagons went in long lines through its rumb- 
ling tunnel, and herds of Vermont cattle crowded it 
as, bleating and bellowing, they were driven to the 
Brighton shambles. If its twilight gloom, its 
musty smell, its dizzy footway, its general appear- 
ance of mild decay in its old age, live in the memory 
of old Haverhill boys, there lives also the remem- 
brance of its keen and witty tollman, Stephen 
Morse. Let one go by without paying toll, 
and Morse locked the gates and followed in hot 
pursuit. He was known to go in the chase even as 
far as Bradford Academy. ''I suppose," said one 
haughty dame whom he had pursued to the further 
end of the bridge, ''I suppose you would have chased 
me if I had been a skunk!" ''Marm," he replied, 
''if you had been a skunk you would have left your 
(s)cent." On one occasion a young man haughtily 
passed him a ten-dollar bill. ''Can you give me 
nothing smaller?" asked the tollman. "What 
right have you to inquire into my finances?" was 
the arrogant reply. The tollman silently locked 

[41] 



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the gates and went up the street for change. He 
sought the large old-fashioned copper cents, and 
wherever he sought them he stayed and chatted 
and enjoyed the warmth of the fire, for the night 
was bitterly cold. Finally weighted down with a 
thousand of them he went back to the half-frozen 
youth and proffered him nine hundred and ninety- 
nine. "Haven't you something larger that you 
can give me?" asked the youth. *'By what right 
do you inquire into my finances?" said the tollman. 
"But where can I carry them?" "In the emptiest 
thing about you — your hat," was the last shot. 
The hat of the youth, however, covered the head of 
him who was later the brilliant senator of Kansas, 
the author of Opportunity, the Honorable John 
James Ingalls. A lover riding by with his lass in a 
"one-hoss shay," tossed pertly into the mud the 
coin from which the toll was to be taken. The toll- 
man picked up the coin without a word, but he 
left the change where he found the coin — in 
the mud. 

At the Haverhill end of the old bridge was a fish 
house where "Jonty" Sanders boiled lobsters. The 
Haverhill patrons sometimes complained that when 
they went out of town there was no rebate, but 
when strangers came into town they received a 
(s)cent back at the fish house. 

[42] 



Of Old Haverhi\l 



" Our town's a pleasant one/' 
sang Whittier, — 

'"Tis odd, however, 

That strangers say so, since the first that meets them, 
When they have paid their toll across the river, 

Is the old fish stand, whose vile odor greets them 
In such a style that I have wondered why. 
With kerchiefed nose, each did not turn and fly." 

At four-score, graj^ and decrepit, the old bridge 
was torn down. Hawsers were hitched to its beams 
and powerful little tugs with many a toot and 
whistle pulled its arches over into the river that it 
had so long spanned. 

The Reverend William Bently of Salem, a wonder- 
ful scholar and a man of most f acinating personality, 
the minister of the East Church from 1783 to 1819, 
kept a very minute diary, and one passage is de- 
scriptive of a visit to Haverhill four years before the 
old bridge was built. The town then had a popula- 
tion of 2,408, and a valuation of $1,519,000. Of 
the places of which he speaks, Harrod's tavern 
stood where City Hall now is; the Congregational 
Church was on the Common — ''City Hall Park"; 
Assembly Hall was on Water street at the 
foot of Lindel; General Brickett's house was the 
one, now much changed, on the easterly corner of 
Water street and Carleton's court; Chief Justice 

[43] 



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Sargeant dwelt on Main street, where the Unitarian 
Church now is; and the Reverend Mr. Shaw oc- 
cupied the parsonage on the commanding site 
where now the beautiful High School stands. 

"September 22, 1790. At J^ past 6 in the morning I went 
from Salem to Haverhill to attend at a Review of the Regi- 
ment, & to visit Capt. Elkins who is superintending the build- 
ing of a vessel I soon mounted a Hill, which gave me a 

sight of Haverhill steeple 4 miles before I reached the ferry. 
When I arrived at the ferry I found that the Review was to be 
on Bradford side. I found Capt. Elkins at Herod's Tavern 
below the Meeting House. The landlord was a neighbor of 

mine in Boston, & has a family of nine children The 

Town has many good Houses, and an extensive prospect, be- 
ing situated upon rising ground, descending to the River, upon 
whose bank is the great Street. The Street extends a full 
mile but the group of houses is at the upper end & the dwell- 
ing Houses chiefly above the Street. At the lower end is an 
elegant Seat of the Saltonstals, now the property of Mrs. Wat- 
son of Plimouth. It has about 30 acres of land, an ancient 
row of elms and Buttons, and a most engaging prospect of the 
River and adjacent country. At the upper end of the Street 
is the Baptist Meeting House the only respectable assembly 
of that denomination in the County, & that is lessening. It 
was founded about 30 years ago during the ministry of Mr. 
Bernard, by a Mr. Hezekiah Smith who is the present pastor. 
It is much out of repair, as are houses in general of that denom- 
ination. The Assembly Room is in an unfinished building. 
Below is a Shop, & the entrance into the Room is by a flight 
of Stairs behind the Shop. As it is upon the Street, it opens 
into a Gallery with a handsome painted Balustrade. Over 
the fireplace at the opposite end is a loft for the Band, & the 
whole Room is finely arched and convenient. The Drawing 
Room is behind. The Congregational Church has a most ex- 
cellent site. It is facing you as you ascend a street leading 

[44] 



Of Old Haverhill 



from the main street into the Country. The houses round are 
pleasant & in good style. It is painted white, has a steeple 
& small bell which rings at one & nine. The interior of the 
Church is without elegance or any distinction. In this Town 
resides our Chief Justice Sargeant. Back of the Meeting House 
& on the side is the House of the Revd Mr. Shaw. The scene 
was engaging while I was present. The River was alive with 
Boats. The opposite Shore was crowded with Spectators, 
& every diversion was pursued which rural life permits. The 
regiment consisted of 800 rank and file, & the Company of 
Horse. The men were well dressed. The Col. named 
Brickett gave entertainment at his House for the Clergy, the 
OflBcers dining at Bradford on the opposite side of the River. 
He is by profession a Physician. There was a manly freedom 
in the higher class of people, but a strange contrast to the 
manners of the lower people, who being employed, instead of 
farming, upon the rivers on rafts & lumbering, have very 
much the manners of the people in the province of Maine .... 
At Haverhill the River is about K of a mile wide, & the tide 
flows commonly about 4 feet. We are carried over in Gon- 
dolas. 

23rd. I returned as far as Newbury. I came down on the 
Haverhill side with an intention to pass at Cottle's ferry, 4 
miles below the town. There is a ferry called Russel's, 3 miles, 
entering the road by a brick house on the right. But as the 
waterman lives on the other side & Cottle on this, they es- 
tabhsh it as a rule to pass down by Cottle's & return by 
Russel's ferry." 

XI 

It is difficult to restore old Water street to its 
condition when it was a street of aristocratic resi- 
dences, but I have heard my kinswoman, Mrs. 
Abbie Kimball, whose long span of life began with 



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Some Me mories 



the nineteenth century, the daughter of Sheriff 
Bailey Bartlett and his beautiful wife, Peggy White, 
describe it when her father lived there, — the row of 
stately houses on the north side, with gardens be- 
hind and terraced banks and flower beds in front, 
the river side open, and the view of its flowing 
waters unobstructed until it turns and is hidden by 
the hills. There stood the imposing mansion of 
''Marchant" John White, the richest man of the 
town, with a hospitable entrance leading to a broad 
hall with a beautiful staircase. Flowers bloomed 
in front, in box-bordered beds, and back were well 
ordered and fruitful gardens. Here apartments 
were prepared for Washington when he came to 
Haverhill, but he took quarters at Harrod's tavern. 
He paid the honor of a call, however, to Mrs. White 
and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Leonard White, and 
to Mrs. Bartlett, whose husband he knew well. 
The ''Marchant" White house later was kept as a 
tavern, called 'The Golden Ball," and later by the 
widening of the street its terraces and entrance were 
destroyed. Now, still noble in its decay, it stands 
on the west side of Stage street, removed from but 
yet near the scene of its days of grandeur and large- 
hearted hospitality. 

The old burying-ground on Water street, lying on 
the eastern confines of the crowded part of the city, 

[46] 



Of Old Haverhill 



its few acres sloping gently upward from the high- 
way and the Merrimac beyond, is the most sacred 
of all the roods of Haverhill earth for it holds min- 
gled with its earth the mouldered ashes of the fore- 
fathers and of later generations of worthy and 
illustrious citizens. Upon the shore of the river 
immediately below the earliest settlers, mooring their 
pinnace, disembarked to found here their new home, 
the limpid mill stream just above attracting them. 
Within these confines and beneath a spreading tree 
they offered their first worship here to the God to 
whose care they reverently confided themselves and 
their fortunes. Here on a knoll that lightly swelled 
from the surrounding land they built their first 
rude meeting-house in 1648. Here, probably, the 
thirteen children who died before 1654 — flowers too 
frail for the rigors and the hardships to which they 
were exposed — were buried in unmarked graves, 
and the twenty-seven other children and the seven 
adults who died before 1663. Following the custom 
of the old England from which they had come, 
the fathers set apart the land by the House of God 
as God's Acre — the resting place of the dead — , vot- 
ing in November, 1660, that the land immediately 
behind the meeting-house should be reserved as a 
burying-ground. Whatever stones may have 
marked the earlier graves have been destroyed. 

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The earliest legible stone is to the memory of Eben- 
ezer Ayer who died October 10, 1695, aged 17 years, 
4 months and 19 days. The youth whose brief 
span is so exactly measured was an orphan, the son 
of Peter Ayer who died in 1682, and of Hanah 
AUin Ayer who died in 1688. Here the sorrowing 
colonists laid to rest in March, 1680, Alice, the ex- 
emplary and devoted wife of the Reverend John 
Ward, the first minister of the town, and here after 
half a century of service and in the fulness of his 
eighty-seven years, the venerable pastor himself 
was buried. Here, too, rests the line of his 
successors for more than a hundred years, — Rolfe, 
Gardner, Brown, Barnard, Shaw, — the stone of each 
commemorating his labors and his virtues. Al- 
though there is no proof that Hannah Duston, the 
early heroine of Haverhill, or her brave husband, 
Thomas, lies here, — the probabilities are negative,- 
yet many of their descendents are here buried. 
Here were interred the victims of the memorable 
Indian raid of August 29, 1708, — the minister, 
Rolfe, killed where the High School now stands, 
Captain Samuel Ayer, Captain Simon Wainwright, 
Lieutenant John Johnson, all men of great bravery, 
and twelve other victims, buried on the day of the 
slaughter because the intense heat made it neces- 
sary, and many of them placed in a common grave 

[48] 



Of Old Haverhill 



because the effort of making separate graves was 
too great for the exhausted survivors. Here per- 
chance rests the first ' 'exile from Erin, ' ' the j oily Irish 
fiddler, Hugh Tallant, who set out in 1739 the row 
of sycamore trees that bordered the Saltonstall 
estate below. 

" Not a stone his grave discloses; 
But if yet his spii'it walks, 
'Tis beneath the trees he planted, 
And when Bob-o-Lincoln talks." 

The original confines of the burying-ground have 
been from time to time extended. In 1732 an ad- 
ditional acre-and-a-half was bought; in 1777 Colonel 
Badger gave an increase of land; and in 1817 
the boundaries were extended by purchase to their 
present limits. Pentucket cemetery occupies the 
lower half of what in earliest times was known as 
the Mill Lot. In 1845 the upper half of this lot was 
purchased and a new cemetery — Linwood — laid out. 
This was dedicated April 21, 1846. To it many of 
the dead from the old cemetery were removed, for 
through carelessness and inattention the old ground 
had fallen into a condition of neglect. The stones 
had been thrown down and broken; the rambling 
blackberry covered the graves; weeds grew un- 
checked; and the rude and lawless made the place 
a resort for their idleness. The ladies of the town 

[49] 



Some Me mories 



set themselves to remedy the shame of this condi- 
tion. By their efforts, particularly by the proceeds 
of a levee held April 10, 1847, sufficient money was 
raised not only to make all needed repairs and im- 
provements, including the buckthorn hedge on the 
west and the iron fence on Water street, but also to 
erect the monument that now stands there to the 
memory of the Reverend Benjamin Rolfe. At 
this time the name of the Old Burying-Ground was 
replaced by that of Pentucket Cemetery. All of the 
inscriptions that mark the graves of those who died 
before 1800 and that are legible have been copied 
and are recorded in the Essex Antiquarian for Janu- 
ary, 1908. These inscriptions mark the simple 
directness, the reverence and the religious faith of 
the times in which they were written. Whatever 
in them seems quaint is so merely because forms of 
expression change. Like all inscriptions above the 
dead, they recount their virtues, express sorrow for 
their loss, hopes for their blessed immortality, and 
the briefness of life and the certainty of death. 

Whittier in his poem. The Old Burying-Ground y 
descriptive of one in Rocks Village, speaks of the 
forefathers as setting apart to Death the ''dreariest 
spot in all the land,'' — 



For thus the fathers testijfied, 
That he might read who ran, 

[50] 



Of Old Haverhill 



The emptiness of human pride, 
The nothingness of man. 

They dared not plant the grave with flowers, 

Nor dress the funeral sod, 
Where, with a love as deep as ours, 

They left their dead with God. 

The hard and thorny path they kept 

From beauty turned aside; 
Nor missed they over those who slept 

The grace to life denied." 

This burial place was not ill-chosen, however. 
It sloped downward to the south and the warm sun 
lay upon it; the broad river laughed or sobbed just 
beyond its lower confines ; the mill brook sang along 
its western line. Its memorials were rude and 
simple, but they bespoke love and memory, even 
though they often were writ with lines that, like 
the voice of Fate, reminded him who read that he, 
too, was mortal. The inscription on the footstone 
of Israel Ela, who died in 1700, is a proper finis to 
this chapter: — 

THY : OUR 
IS : RVnE 
THY : TImE 
IS : DVnE 



[51] 



Some Me mories 



XII 

The brook that turned the mill that gave to Mill 
street its name has disappeared from view, the dust 
of the forefathers has long ago become as the dust 
wherewith it is commingled in the old Pentucket 
burying-ground, but below is an old house over 
whose portals passed in and out some of the first 
settlers of the town, the old home of the first 
preacher of the town, the Reverend John Ward. 
For more than two hundred years it stood where it 
stands now; then, like nearly every old house in the 
place, it was moved to a new location. But when 
its historical value was appreciated, it was bought 
and restored to its original location. In it lived 
that sweet daughter of John Ward, Elizabeth, who 
won the heart of Nathaniel Saltonstall, and in it 
possibly they were married, December 28, 1663. 
With Elizabeth her father gave as dowry the estate 
now known as the ''Buttonwoods." Their grandson 
was Judge Richard Saltonstall, born July 14, 1703, 
a Colonel at the age of 23, a Judge of the Superior 
Court at the age of 33, one of His Majesty's 
Council, "a man of talents and learning, distin- 
guished for generous and elegant hospitality, 
and for his bounteous liberality to the poor. His 
address was polished, affable and winning, his tem- 
per gentle and benevolent, and he enjoyed the love 

[52] 



Of Old Haverhill 



and esteem of all." Under his direction the noble 
avenue of sycamore or buttonwood trees was 
planted by Hugh Tallant, the first Irish resident of 
Haverhill, the village merry-maker and fiddler, 
jolly and witty, — 

" Merry faced, with spade and fiddle, 
Singing through the ancient town, — 
Only this of poor Hugh Tallant 
Hath tradition handed down, — 

Jolliest of our birds of singing, 

Best he loved the Bob-o-hnk; 
* Hush!' he'd say, 'the tipsy fairies! 

Hear the little folks in drink.' " 

For a century and a quarter the shade of these 
Occidental plane-trees fell across the road and upon 
the waters of the river beyond. Then a blight 
attacked them, and in February, 1867, they were 
cut down and their trunks, sawed into planks, were 
used to build a wharf below the Haverhill bridge. 
Of the mansion of the Saltonstalls nothing remains 
save a tradition of its elegance and its hospitality. 
It stood on the beautiful site now occupied by the 
Historical House, the stretches of the glorious river 
in front, and resembled in its appointments and in 
the mode of life within the homes of the gentry of 
England. 

The eldest son of Judge Saltonstall and the heir 

[53] 



Some Memories 



to this estate was Richard, born April 5, 1732, who 
was commissioned as Colonel in 1754 and made 
Sheriff of Essex County in 1760. Brave in fighting, 
philanthropic, with a strict sense of loyalty he 
maintained his allegiance to the King when the 
Revolution was brewing. In the excitement of the 
times a mob of men from the outskirts of the town 
surrounded his house one night to express by 
violence their disapproval of his position. But he 
met them with such dignity, serenity and kindness 
that their fire was quenched. He left the town, 
however, soon after and returned to England. Here 
he declined the offices offered to him by the King, 
but lived honored by his English friends. He lies 
buried by Kensington church, with his virtues 
commemorated by a monument there. His estate 
became the property of his sister, Mrs. Abigail 
Watson of Plymouth. The mansion was destroyed 
by fire, the estate was sold to Colonel Samuel 
Duncan, and the house now occupied by the 
Historical Society was built on the site of the 
former mansion in 1814. 

The brick house a short distance farther down 
Water street, sometimes known as the ''Spiller 
House," though built in the manner of a garrison 
house with port holes and narrow windows, was 
never a place of refuge or defence. It is, however, 
[S4] 



Of Old Haverhill 



nearly two centuries old, having been built in 1724, 
and it is historical in having been the home of John 
Eaton, the early town clerk. 

XIII 

It seems to have been the fortune of many no- 
table houses in Haverhill to make at least one 
journey. The Dr. Saltonstall house retires from 
busy Merrimack street to the sylvan banks of Plug 
Pond; the Sheriff Bartlett house is divided, a part 
being moved to Dustin square and there burned, a 
part to the corner of Water street and Eastern 
avenue; the John Ward house makes a forty-year 
visit to Eastern avenue and then returns; the Judge 
Sargeant house goes first to Pleasant street and then 
to Spring court; the interesting house formerly 
occupied by the late George C. How, removes 
from Water street to Main street; its neighbor 
across the street, the Butters house, comes to 
town from the Kingston plains; and the list might 
be made much longer. The old house long known 
as the Smiley house, on the west corner of Pleasant 
and Winter streets, was earlier Kendall's Tavern, 
and stood on Elm Corner at the junction of 
Main and Water streets. A few rods east of 
the elm tree was a fount of clear water, known 



Some Me mories 



as Kendall's spring. North of Kendall's tavern 
on Main street was Peter Osgood's apothe- 
cary store, and beyond that is still the Osgood house, 
although it is hidden from view by the one-story 
shops that cover the front yard where once tall 
lilacs bloomed while between them a pebbled walk 
led up to the front door. The last resident in this 
house, Miss Ann Osgood, was an old, old lady 
when she died. When I was a boy and acted as 
assistant in the Haverhill Athenaeum library, Miss 
Osgood's choice of books distinctly impressed me 
because it was in so great contrast to that of the 
majority of the ladies. She read Motley's and 
Prescott's histories, the works of Parkman, and if 
she descended to fiction it was some volume of 
Miss Muhlbach's historical novels that she took 
across the way. On her mother's side she was of a 
notable family whose coming to Haverhill had 
romantic features. Her grandfather, Benjamin 
Willis, was a ship-master of Charlestown who 
married in Boston, Mary Ball, a kinswoman to that 
Mary Ball who was the mother of Washington. 
At the outbreak of the Revolution Mr. Willis was 
captured by the British. His wife and her three 
children Benjamin, Robert and Mary, lived on 
Charlestown neck. Near their home was a stream 
of pure and fresh water. A British man-of-war an- 
[S6] 



Of Old Haverhill 



chored near by and took possession of this water 
supply, enclosing it and declaring that it would 
shoot whoever entered this enclosure to get water. 
A neighbor of Mrs. Willis took her pail, one day, 
and started to get water in the enclosure. Mrs. 
Willis warned her of the peril, but the neighbor 
said, **I want the water, and I am going to get it." 
A shot from the ship blew off the woman's head 
before the eyes of Mrs. Willis. Then she, terrified, 
declared that she could no longer live there, and, 
hardly caring where fate might take her, came by 
chance to Haverhill. She believed her husband 
dead, she was poor, and the trying days of the 
Revolution came. She lived on Water street in an 
old house that was called "Noah's Ark." After 
the war was over her son, one day, watched a boat 
that was coming up the river. He started, gazed 
earnestly, and rushed to his mother with the cry, 
"Father is coming!" "No, no, he is dead," said his 
mother. "Come, see!" he begged. And as she 
reached the river side a man leaned over the rail of 
the boat and shouted, "It is I, Molly, come home to 
die!" He did not die, however, but lived to become 
a prosperous merchant on Merrimack street. His 
daughter Mary married Peter Osgood; his son 
Benjamin, going as supercargo in one of his father's 
ships to London, became acquainted with a leading 
[S7] 



Some Me movies 



merchant of that city, who took such a strong liking 
to the young American that he gave him both 
advice and assistance and enabled him to become 
one of the largest importers in the state. His ships 
laden with valuable cargoes came into Newbury- 
port, and thence his goods were brought up river 
or sent whither their young owner desired. The 
daughter of this Benjamin, Mary, married the 
Honorable James H. Duncan, and was long the 
dignified, gracious and beloved mistress of the man- 
sion now occupied by the Pentucket Club. 

The Athenaeum building, in the upper story of 
which was the Athenaeum library, occupied the 
site where the Odd Fellows' Building is now. 
When it was removed in 1872 the remains of three 
vats were uncovered. They were part of an old 
distillery, where West India molasses was made 
into New England rum, and the water for its use 
was brought in wooden pipes from an excellent 
spring, back of Music Hall, that gave the name to 
Spring Court. 

XIV 

An old map of Haverhill, published in 1851, is of 
much antiquarian value because it designates the 
residences of the citizens of that time. It is em- 
ts8] 



Of Old Haverhill 



bellished, too, with a number of cuts of public 
buildings and among them is one of the first Town 
Hall, built in 1847. Its four massive pillars in 
front, supporting the entablature, form its notice- 
able architectural feature. A belfry rises above the 
front of the building, and over this hovers a golden 
eagle. The hall was formally opened February 22, 
1848. There was an historical address b}^ the 
Honorable James H. Duncan, and the singing of an 
original hymn of which the following lines are a 
part: — 

" Let us anew the scenes renew 
Here wrought in days of yore, 
When hostile bands with murderous hands 
Roamed our fair precincts o'er. 
The savage whoop, the fiendlike yell, 
Spread fearful consternation 
Where our town clock and massive bell 
Now wake congratulation." — 

It was by poetic license, undoubtedly, that time 
had been siezed by the forelock, for the town clock 
was not put up until two months later. 

— " Thy sons shall still, old Haverhill, 

Thy patriot deeds revere 
Long as the sun shall shine upon 

Yon eagle resting here." 

The reverence of the sons of Haverhill has not 
been bounded in time by the stay of the town hall 
[S9] 



Some Me mories 



eagle, for when this hall, outgrown as soon as built, 
was replaced by the newer one, in 1861, the eagle 
was placed on the hook and ladder house on Fleet 
street. Thence it has stolen in silent and myster- 
ious flight I know not whither, but where it rests 
I hope it may keep up the cry of the homesick soul 
until conscience compels its keeper to restore it to 
its earlier precincts. 

When on the evening of September 5, 1853, the 
streets of the town were to be lighted by gas for the 
first time, a plan was formed fittingly to celebrate 
the event. There was to be a procession of the 
military and the dignitaries of the town through the 
illuminated streets, the band leading and playing 
triumphal music, to the Town Hall where a banquet 
and toasts were to be enjoyed. All went well as 
planned except that the gas refused to burn or 
even to be lighted. It was indignantly told around 
the town the next day that ''Jonty" Sanders — a 
local butt — had maliciously pulled the wicks out of 
the gas jets, and thus spoiled the illumination. 

The first sewing machine in Haverhill was shown 
in the old Haverhill Bank building on Main street, 
nearly opposite the Eagle House. There was great 
prejudice against the use of these machines on 
shoes, and those who earliest introduced them for 
this purpose, — Moses How and Woodman & Lan- 
[6o] 



Of Old Haverhill 



caster, — used to stop and cover them over when 
buyers came. From the steps of the Town Hall 
George W. Lee strongly harrangued against their 
use, claiming that the work was good for nothing, 
and that their introduction would bring distress 
and starvation to the workers. 

The present City Hall — it still bears the brown 
tablet marking it as the Town Hall — was dedicated 
August 6, 1862. That was its formal dedication, 
but for four years it received a continued and 
greater dedication in the patriotic uses to which it 
was put. The stimulus of noble oratory, the en- 
thusiasm of crowded mass meetings, the great fairs 
in aid of the soldiers, the simple but impressive 
services over the dead heroes, all hallowed it to the 
cause of humanity and liberty. From its platform 
all the great speakers of that age of oratory, — 
Sumner, Phillips, Beecher, Chapin, — counselled and 
taught and inspired. There, too, music often ex- 
ercised her sway, — the Mendelssohn Club, Ole 
Bull, Camilla Urso, Annie Louise Cary, Adelaide 
Phillips, and she who held so large a place in the 
hearts of Haverhill people, Julia Houston West. 
The play was rare there, but in its place were the 
dramatic readings by great interpreters. All, all 
are gone, and yet I see them still, their gracious 
smiles, their little mannerisms, even their silks and 
[6i] 



So7ne Me mories 



their laces, bowing beyond the footlights of the 
past. 

The story is told of Mrs. Vincent, who sometimes 
played here with William Warren and the Boston 
Museum company, that once the stage waited for 
her until messengers were sent out to hunt her up. 
She was found remonstrating w^th a burly teamster 
who was driving a lame horse. As she was hurried 
on she exclaimed, ''Well, I don't care if the stage is 
waiting. I won't see a brute driving a horse on 
three legs without speaking my mind." Mrs. 
Houston West shared this compassion for the 
abused horse, and never failed to rebuke the one 
who abused him. The depth of feeling, the fullness 
of expression, that made her singing a revelation 
were due to the woman as well as to the great artist. 
A little anecdote of her, showing another character- 
istic, is worth relating for the lesson in it. Some 
busybody had told to a favorite accompanist of hers 
some criticism of her as made by the singer, and the 
accompanist, in tears, went to Mrs. West about 
it. "My dear," said Mrs. West with great sweet- 
ness and dignity, "she who told you that is neither 
your friend nor mine," and she made no other 
answer. 

Haverhill audiences have often been considered 
impassive. I recall two rebukes of this coldness, 

[62] 



Of Old Haverhill 



but widely different ones. Bret Harte once lectured 
here on The Argonauts of '49. He had gone but 
a little way in his lecture when he felt the chill 
of his audience. He stopped, looked around, 
frowned, and growled, ''Humph! icicles dressed up 
in clothes!" Then he turned to his manuscript, 
read it through with lightning speed, stalked to the 
dressing room and made the air sulphurous with 
curses. 

Mrs. Scott-Siddons, a very beautiful woman and 
a genius in the reading of Shakespeare's plays, had 
given with much power and sweetness several scenes 
from the great dramatist to an audience that sat 
silent and unmoved. Suddenly she left the desk, 
swept out before her audience, and recited a bit of 
silly verse, describing an auction sale of old bach- 
elors: — 

" A crier was sent through the town to and fro, 
To rattle his bell and his trumpet to blow, 
And to bawl out to all he might meet on his way, 
*Ho! forty old bachelors sold here today.' 

And presently all the old maids of the town, — 
Each one in her very best bonnet and gown, — 
From thirty to sixty, fair, plain, red and pale. 
Of every description all flocked to the sale. 

The auctioneer, then, on his labor began; 
And called out aloud as he held up a man, 
'How much for a bachelor? who wants to buy?' 
In a twink every maiden responded, 'I — I! ' 

[63] 



Some Me mories 



In short, at a hugely extravagant price 

The bachelors all were sold ofif in a trice, 

And forty old maidens, — some younger, some older ,- 

Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder." 



The audience awoke to animation, and the hand- 
clapping was prolonged and loud. When it ceased, 
in incisive tones Mrs. Scott-Siddons remarked, 
''One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
I thank you for the genuine applause for that you 
most appreciate." 

XV 

Just above the site of the Cit}^ Hall two prim 
spinsters long kept a millinery and dress-making 
shop, the little sign above the door reading, ''Af. 
& P. Wingate, Mantua Makers.'" The wits very 
quickly designated them as Ma and Pa Wingate. 
Their ribbons and laces vanished long before my 
day, and my memory of them is an inheritance. I 
have often, however, seen them ''in my mind's eye, 
Horatio," — Priscilla, with her hair looped in smooth 
bands over her ears, the oak of the establishment, 
Mercy, the clinging vine, with clustering curls 
falling over delicate pink cheeks, gazing out through 
the little panes of their show window to watch for 
some prospective customer. 

[64] 



Of Old Haverhill 



Prim Prissy Wingate made my bonnet, 
But Mercy put the flowers on it. 

It looked so very, very nice, 
Mama quite gladly paid the price. 

In flowered band-box home I bore it. 
And Sabbath day to meeting wore it. 

A Httle late I reached my pew 
That all might see my bonnet new. 

The dear old parson preached of love. 
With eyes that gazed on realms above. 

But when he mentioned "Fair-I-see," 
I really thought he might mean me— 

Six summers only had I seen. 
And that excuses much, I ween, — 

He spoke of Mercy and of bhss; 
I thought of Mercy and of Pris. 

"The hand of Mercy giveth grace," — 
'Twas true she fixed the flowers and lace, 

But somehow it seemed quite unfair 
To leave unmentioned Prissy's share, — 

So when he said, — thinking alone 
Of love divine to mankind shown,— 

With look intent and gesture neat 

That pointed straightway towards my seat, 

'' The hand of Mercy rested on it," — 
*'True!" cried I, "but Pris made the bonnet." 

[6s] 



Some Me mories 



If some one shall remind me that the name of the 
elder was not Mercy but Mehetabel, I shall answer 
in the spirit of an old colored mother who expressed 
surprise that she had named her little ebony baby 
Lily White, — ''She's jest Lily White to her ma, but 
you can call her Vi'let if you like." Apropos of 
making the name fit poetic demands I recall that 
when Kenoza lake was formally named in 1859, a 
local poet wrote some verses in honor of the event. 
Thinking that Kenoza was the Indian name for 
trout, he sang — 

" Tales of Kenosha, the trout, 
Swimming in thy depths about. 
In the beds of flag leaves deep, 
'Mong the lily-pads asleep, — " 

but learning that the musical Indian word meant 

"lake of the pickerel," he restrung his lyre, and 

sang 

" Of the pickerel, Kenoza, 
Clear the gravelled bottom shows her, — 

a facile change, and a most ingenious rhyme. 

One old building of the near neighborhood ought 
not to go unsung, — the little schoolhouse which 
stood north of the Common and which until 1834 
was the public one of the village. Over its threshold 
with ink-horn and book must have gone many a 
[66] 



Of Old Haverhill 



youth whose name is writ large in the history of the 
town, to be taught in the stern way of old the three 
R's, including ''stops and points, notes of affection 
and interrogation, accenting and Emphasizing," — 
this referring to nothing more sentimental or serious 
than reading. An early teacher of this school was 
Master Parker. He was as sharp of wit as he was 
quick of temper. To a father who had complained 
that he taught his son nothing he replied, ''Sir, I 
can instruct brains, but I cannot create them." 

" Old Master Parker's inky, oaken rule 
Sent terror through his tired, listless school 
As from his hand with lightning speed it flew, 
And left on luckless heads marks black and blue; 
Or, swift descending on the truant's back, 
Made every cringing nerve and muscle crack." 

Another master was one about whom "Dan" 
Carleton, an older brother of the late James H. 
Carleton, wrote, when he was a pupil, the squib, — 

" Old Doe's a very ugly man; 
He hcks his pupils all he can; 
May the good Lord shut off his breath 
Before he hcks us all to death." 

It certainly needed the Christian virtue of pa- 
tience to keep school in a building designed, as an 
early report said of this one, "to keep as large a 



Some Me movies 



number of pupils in as small a space as possible;" 
and the fact, also noted in an early report, that 
"three boys must sit together in each seat," did not 
make the master's task the easier. There were 
teachers here, however, who won by the gentler 
methods, — Greenwood, who died in 1841, as the 
school report said in his praise, "with the dew of 
youth fresh upon him, rendering his virtues the 
more fragrant;" Smiley, who had ever a train of 
youth following him, the genial book-seller later, 
and, later still, the third mayor of the city; Ham- 
mond, whose somewhat sterner rule was trans- 
ferred to the Winter street school; and Miss Ann 
Kimball, who was in her earlier years the model of 
primary teachers, and who reluctantly gave up her 
work only when, after long years of service, age 
stole from her the keenness of hearing and vision. 
After a full century-and-a-quarter of existence as 
a schoolhouse the building was moved in 1874 
first to the corner of Locust and Winter streets, and 
being there unwelcome, to Primrose street. Like 
the house that "stood on the hill, — If it isn't gone, 
it stands there still." 



[68] 



Of Old Haverhill 



XVI 

One might teach almost the whole history of 
Haverhill in connection with the little triangle of 
land that never had an individual owner, so long 
known as the Common, but now — embellished and 
adorned — called City Hall Park, — the very centre 
and heart of the city. It lay in early times at the 
divergence of the Highway leading to Thomas Dus- 
ton^s mill (Main street) and the Highway leading 
to ye West Bridge (Winter street). The first meet- 
ing house of the town was built in 1648 "on the 
lower knoll of the Mill lot," — that is, on the knoll 
that rises from Water street in Pentucket Cemetery. 
The second meeting house was built, after much 
and bitter discussion, in 1698-9, in this little 
Common, and placed nearly opposite where Pleas- 
ant street enters Winter street. The land south- 
west of the Common was the property of Captain 
John Wainwright, and his house, on the site of the 
present City Hall, became in 1781 the possession of 
Joseph Harrod, and was kept as an inn called from 
the painting on its sign-board. The Masons^ Arms. 
A long tract of land on the east of the Common be- 
longed to Samuel Emerson. This land with the 
house and barn was bought in 1700 by the Reverend 
Benjamin Rolfe for fifty pounds of silver. After 
[69l 



Some Me movies 



the massacre of Rolfe the town bought the estate as 
a parsonage. The new church had been built ten 
years when, early on the morning of August 29, 
1708, just as daylight first flushed the east, the dis- 
charge of John Keezars' gun and the blood-curdling 
yells of the Indians on their murderous foray 
aroused the inhabitants. The savages scattered 
over the little village, killing the minister Rolfe in 
his house, burning, murdering in fiendish fury, and 
taking flight before the sun was fully risen, leaving 
not only grief for the sixteen victims slain but deep- 
er sorrow and fear for the captives borne away. 

Here in 1743 was hung the first bell in the town, 
one imported from London, and here a year later 
a whipping post and stocks were erected nearly 
opposite the present site of the Hotel Bartlett. 
In 1766 a new meeting house was built just north 
of the old one. 

The Common was the training field for the militia. 
From it marched one hundred and five minute men 
to the scene of action on the day that the news of 
the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord reached 
Haverhill. This number was almost half of the 
entire military force of the town. And that night, 
in terror lest the British should make an attack on 
Haverhill, the citizens, men, women and children, 
brought their goods packed to the Common, and in 

[70] 



Of Old Haverhill 



anxiety waited in readiness for flight at the first 
alarm. In the battle of Bunker Hill fifty-four of 
the thousand men engaged in the redoubt were from 
Haverhill. 

Here should be told the story of William Baker 
of Haverhill, to whose action the ride of Paul 
Revere was due. He was a youth of twenty, em- 
ployed in a distillery owned by Mr. Hill in Cole's 
Court, now Portland street, in Boston. A woman 
quartered with the Forty-Third British regiment 
went to this place and, being partially intoxicated, 
unwittingly communicated to the owner of the dis- 
tillery the design of the British to march to Con- 
cord. Baker volunteered to carry this information 
to General Warren. He passed the British guards 
and sentries and reached Warren's headquarters. 
There he gave the information to Adjutant Devens, 
General Warren being absent. Having performed 
this mission Baker proffered his further services, 
and to him was entrusted the duty of reaching 
Charlestown and having ready the horse on which 
Paul Revere made his historic ride. 

XVII 

George Washington, elected President of the 
United States March 4, 1789, and inaugurated on 
the 30th of April following, wished to become per- 

[71] 



Some Me mories 



sonally acquainted with the state of feeling towards 
the new government. He therefore visited New 
England in the autumn of that year, going as far 
east as Portsmouth. Colonel Tobias Lear, Wash- 
ington's secretary, who accompanied him on this 
journey was a native of Portsmouth, a graduate of 
Harvard College in 1783, and on terms of mutual 
affection and respect with his great chief. The 
citizens of Haverhill desired the President to visit 
them on the return journey, but hope and dis- 
appointment rapidly alternated until, on the after- 
noon of November 4, a solitary horseman rode 
frenziedly adown the street past the Common, 
blowing a trumpet and crying ''Washington is 
coming! Washington is coming!" The bell in the 
meeting-house steeple rang as never before, the 
children in the town school at the head of the 
Common were immediately dismissed, and every- 
one hurried forth. Soon Mr, Lear appeared, 
mounted on a white horse and followed by a 
carriage drawn by four white steeds, in which sat 
General Washington and Major Jackson. He re- 
mained over night at the Masons' Arms, rode 
through the village, and by his graciousness and 
pleasant compliments greatly honored the town. 
He reviewed the village militia, drawn up on Water 
street, before continuing his journey. The morn- 

[7*1 



Of Old Haverhill 



ing after his arrival he crossed the river by the 
ferry opposite Kent street, leaving behind the town 
whose beauty he had praised and enriching her 
traditions by the memory of the courtesy of the 
Father of his Country. In honor of his visit Wash- 
ington square and Washington street received his 
name. 

The meeting-house on the Common saw the 
organization of the first Sunday school in the place, 
the inspiration of two ladies. Miss Gibson and Miss 
Pagett, of Charleston, South Carolina, who were 
then visiting Mrs. Atwood in the great house 
north of the Common. In the parlors of the 
Atwood house the Haverhill Benevolent Society 
was organized in January, 1818, through the in- 
fluence of these Southern guests. 

The town had used the church as its meeting 
place for many years without payment, but in 1827 
the Parish decided to make charge for such use. 
The town refused to pay such charge, and hence- 
forth until the building of the Town Hall in 1847 
held its meetings in various places, even as far dis- 
tant as the churches in the East and the West 
parishes. A controversy then arose between the 
town and the parish as to the ownership of the 
Common. This difference was settled in 1837 by 
the action of the town in buying the claim of the 

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parish to the land and laying it out as a common 
forever. For this release by the parish the town 
purchased as a site for their church the Marsh lot, 
north of the Common, paying for it S2,750. The 
vote of the parish, passed June 5, 1837, shows under 
what conditions the Common is held: — 

" Voted, That the Parish will sell, by quit-claim deed, to 
the Town of Haverhill, for the use of the Town, as an ornament- 
al common, not to be built on, the land of the Parish hereto- 
fore used as their meeting-house lot; reserving all the stone 
and brick on the same, on full and plain conditions, expressed 
in the deed, limiting the use of the said land for the purpose of 
an ornamental common, and providing for the said deed being 
void, and the land reverting to the Parish, if any building or 
buildings whatever, shall, either by the said town or any per- 
son or body, ever be placed or suffered to remain on said land, 
or on any of the said land situate between any part of the said 
land and the Marsh lot, so called, lying a few rods northerly 
of the land so deeded to the Town." 

The parish in the same year built a new church 
on the Marsh lot. This new edifice was destroyed 
by fire on January 1, 1847, despite the energy of 
the ladies in forming a line and passing the fire- 
buckets filled with water while the men looked on. 
The present church was then built, facing for many 
years the Common, but finally being turned to its 
present position. 

The Common to which the Town thus acquired 
complete title was a rough and uneven patch, with 

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Of Old Haverhill 



buttonwood trees upon it that had been planted by 
Judge Sargeant in 1790. In 1844 the ladies raised 
money for its grading and improvement, and in 
1846 the elms that since have formed its arboreal 
beauty were set out. In this year the town scales 
were removed from it to a place south of the 
Common, neighboring to the old town pump — an 
institution dear to those who remember it and the 
iron gourd from which all drank its waters — that 
might have rilled as interestingly of the habits of 
the town and its people as did the one immortal- 
ized by Hawthorne. 

XVIII 

When the secession of the Southern states threw 
the shadow of the Civil War over the country, 
Haverhill prepared to render its service. In compli- 
ance with an order of Governor Andrew of Massa- 
chusetts, Captain Messer of the Hale Guards called 
a meeting of the company under his command, at 
the armory in the Town Hall, on January 23, 1861. 
When by roll call each member was asked if he was 
ready to respond to the summons of the Governor 
to defend the Union, every mother's son of them 
answered, "Yes!'' That summons came on April 
19. The old guard, the surviving members of the 

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Haverhill Light Infantry, some of them veterans of 
the war of 1812, assembled to act as escort to the 
departing company. The firemen lent their pic- 
turesque presence to the procession, and the throng 
of citizens filled the walks. Thus accompanied the 
Hale Guards — Company G — marched in mid- 
afternoon to the Common. Alfred Kittredge 
there placed in the hands of the officers the sum of 
$1,500 — the gift of citizens — to be distributed to the 
men; Thomas F. Barr presented a beautiful silk 
flag; Dr. Raymond H. Seeley made an inspiring and 
patriotic address, bidding them in the name of their 
fellow-citizens ''God speed;" the Honorable George 
Cogswell brought them the message of cheer and 
blessing from Bradford; and then, the band playing 
patriotic airs, the whole concourse moved through 
Main and Merrimack and Washington streets to the 
railway station. There were cheers and tears, fer- 
vent prayers and fond farewells, and the playing of 
America by the band as the train moved oE. The 
tragedy of war had touched the town. The Tiger 
Engine Company honored the ten of its members 
who were in Company G by retaining them on the 
roll list, exempt from all assessments, and framing 
their names to be hung on the walls of its hall. 

When news of victory came, the boys built the 
bonfires of rejoicing in the wide spaces of Main 

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street below the Common; when word of defeat 
came, the silence of gloom and sadness lay over the 
whole village. 

The name which the G. A. R. Post of Haverhill 
bears — Major How — is that of a hero who fell in 
the fearful six days fighting before Richmond. 
Henry Jackson How, killed June 30, 1862, by a 
musket ball in the breast, a graduate of Phillips 
ilcademy of Andover and of the class of 1859 of 
Harvard College, left to his native town the splen- 
did picture of pure manliness as well as the glorious 
memory of a fearless soldier. Tall, well-propor- 
tioned, blufT but hearty, the personification of 
truthfulness, he united kindness with firmness so 
flawlessly that he held love while he exacted obe- 
dience. ^'I did not come to this war hastily," he 
said; '^I counted the cost;" and his last words were, 
"I know I must die. I am willing to give up life 
in so good a cause. Let death come here on the 
field of battle, — it is more glorious so. And let me 
be wrapped in the flag given me by my dear friends 
in Haverhill." 

His sword is the precious possession of the Post 
that bears his name; his picture is there to bring 
back memories and arouse inspiration; but no re- 
cord of the Haverhill of his generation would be 
complete that did not bear, at least, in simple lines, 

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the story of his devotion and death. "So that the 
life he brave, what though not longV^ 



XIX 

For more than a full century and a quarter — 
from the time when Parson Rolfe bought from 
Samuel Emerson, in 1700, the house at the back 
door of which he was massacred, until Dr. Moses 
Nichols purchased the estate in 1831 — the success- 
ive ministers of the First Parish dwelt on the present 
site of the High School building. The house of the 
Indian tragedy of 1708 was torn down and a new 
parsonage erected in 1773. This later parsonage 
was the house so recently removed to make room 
for the school edifice. Its first occupant was one 
who had lived in the older house for thirty years, 
the Reverend Edward Barnard, pastor of the church 
from 1743 to 1774. More interesting than his 
scholarly and elegant sermons are the manuscripts 
of his which form a sort of a diary and shine like a 
little light on the customs and manners of his 
times. These manuscripts have now mysteriously 
disappeared but before their vanishing Miss Harriet 
O. Nelson fortunately examined them and made 
excerpts from them. From her delightful essay on 

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Of Old Haverhill 



this Old-Time Haverhill Minister I borrow the fol- 
lowing paragraphs: — 

"Two other manuscripts comprise what is called 'an ac- 
count of benefactions' for ten years beginning with 1762, and 
is a careful list of gifts received, with the donors' names, many 
of which are still familiar in this vicinity. The record of 
good things makes one's mouth water, even after this lapse 
of time. There are beef and veal, geese and turkeys, and a 
long procession of 'roasting pigs,' while the return of spring 
never failed to bring salmon, 'shadd' and Tickarel' of the 
'first catching.' At Thanksgiving time it might be said of 
this good and gifted parson as of Chaucer's Franklin — 'It 
snewed in hj^ house of meat and drink.' Then came turkeys, 
pigeons and geese, bisket and oranges, 'Mince pye,' 'cranbrie 
tart and fine pudding,' with no end of 'sparrib.' On another 
occasion there are sent from 'Mrs. Ayer, lady of ancient 
Deacon, a cheese new, part of an old cheese, and Diet Bread 
to assist in the entertainment of our quilters,' while again, 
generous soul, she is credited with 'cabbage, spare-rib, chop 
of Bacon, Turnips, small legg of Pork,' and still again, 'Half 
old sheep.' Gifts of brandy, rum and 'cyder' show that the 
days of prohibition had not dawned, while pipes and tobacco 
are not unmentioned. 

Nor were the donations confined to supplies for the inner 
man. One was after this wise: 'Mrs. Sally McHard, genteel 
toothpicks to myself and lady,' while a rather puzzHng memo- 
randum runs thus: 'Mr. Marsh, tutor at college, half a ticket 
to my wife, 3 dollars.' A new saddle from nine donors is men- 
tioned in impressive capitals, but the smallest favors seem 
always to be noticed, such as an orange or two now and then, 
or'a Mugg from Mrs. Steele and a httle Mugg to Sally from her 
negro girl, Kate.' The minister occasionally acknowledges 
the free use of a chaise for a visit to Andover, Chester, or 
even remote Boston. 

The somewhat promiscuous character of these 'benefactions' 
reminds us not a httle of Barkis's offerings of affection to Peg- 

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gotty, — 'a double set of pig's trotters, a huge pin-cushion, 
half a bushel or so of apples, a box of dominoes, some Spanish 
onions, a canary bird and cage, and a leg of pickled 
pork.' 

Certain brothers Gary were evidently good geniuses of the 
Barnard household. Brother Richard Gary is credited on 
one occasion with the gift of 'six gallons of Rum,' and 'Brother 
Daniel Gary, quam plurima.' Again there is acknowleged 
from the Reverend Thomas Gary 'a gown for my son Nedd, 
one side fine Plaid, other handsome Galliminco.' Oh, if we 
could only have a picture of Master Nedd on his first appear- 
ance in that smart new garment and find out its precise cut! 
If his younger brother felt any envy of Master Nedd's finery, 
perhaps he was consoled by a gift from Mr. Osgood of two 
chickens and some gray squirrels.' " 



As a foil for the smile caused by the quaint gift to 
Master Nedd, comes a tear for his death. This 
lovely boy, Edward, born December 3, 1747, died 
September 6, 1752, not quite five years old. The 
father, ''a grave, meek, peace-loving man," saddened 
by his bereavement, thought perhaps of the beau- 
tiful Greek youth stricken in his beauty, imaged in 
the brook as was his son in his heart. So 
he wrote the following touching and beautiful 
poem : — 

.NARCISSUS 

Narcissus was a lovely boy, 

Around his parents smiled, 
Added to every rising joy. 

And all their cares beguiled. 

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Health sat upon his smiling cheek, 

Life sparkled in his eye, 
Genius conspired in what he spake 

To raise our prospects high. 

So have I seen the infant rose 

Beneath the genial ray 
Its blushing beauties half disclose, 

And gladden every day. 

Anon I hear the stormy wind, 
Cold night attends its shades; 

Withers the flower with head inclined, 
Its blushing beauties fade. 

No more to me the spring appears 
To bless the teeming earth; 

No more the birds salute my ears 
To hail the fruitful birth. 

The plants in ample order rise, 

Exult in various forms; — 
But in the grave Narcissus lies, 

Nor seeks my longing arms. 

The sense in mournful strains repines, 
But faith corrects my tongue ; 

Truth in my breast serenely shines, 
And thus inspires the song. 

When heavenly souls by death forsake 

This frail, obscure abode. 
Upward an active flight they take, 

And find their rest with God. 



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There bright as cherubim, they stand 

Before their Savior's face; 
A verdant palm shall fill each hand, 

And crown each temple's grace. 

No more of pain or thirst they know 

Through everlasting years! 
My God commands the streams to flow, 

And wipes the falling tears. 



XX 

When the first Catalogue of the Officers and 
Students of Haverhill Academy appeared in 1827, 
printed on a single large sheet of pink paper, the 
name of John G. Whittier appeared in the list of 
pupils, and the name of Miss Arethusa Hall ap- 
peared as Preceptress. She who was Whittier's 
teacher for a brief while, filled the measure of Words- 
worth's description of a perfect woman in She was 
a phantom of delight. The record of her long life 
reminds me of Ben Jonson's lines, — 

" Where'er she went the flowers took thickest root. 
As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot, — 

and the flowers were religious thoughtfulness, in- 
tellectual culture, sympathy, compassion, love. 
One of her pupils wrote in the old fashion of the 
acrostic this picture of her : — 

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" Mark you that lady who, with gracious air, 
Instructs the young committed to her care? 
See how by firmness and benignity 
She brings all hearts to own her sovereignty. 

Happy indeed are those who travel on, 
Attaining knowledge with her benison! 
Love guards her action, duty points the way : 
Long may she live to exercise her sway." 

This prayer for her long life was granted, for, 
born in 1802, she was released from earth in 1890. 
No worthy picture of her exists. Tall, stately, 
gracious, ''her noble spirit shining in her noble face," 
she wrought with ceaseless activity and in all the 
fields of woman's work from the humble household 
duties to the writing of books. 

" Queen of the tub, I merrily sing 
While the white foam rises high, 
And sturdily wash and rinse and wring, 

And fasten the clothes to dry ; 
And out in the free, fresh air they swing, 
Under the summer sky." 

Two months before her death she wrote me a 
delightful letter describing the school and the town 
when she came to Haverhill in 1827: — 

" Some days before the opening of the academy I went to 
Haverhill, and was received at the house of Madam Duncan, 
a lady of the old school of gentility, whose home was a model 
of neatness, order, and the elegance of the day. Her son 

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whom I had met resided with her and was then unmarried. 
Here I remained a few days until a permanent boarding place 
was found for me. This proved to be the home of the vener- 
able Mrs. Atwood, mother of the lamented Harriet Newell, 
wife of one of the missionaries to India. 

The dedication of the new academy soon took place with 
much ceremony, the principal citizens of the town taking 
great interest in the new institution. The school consisted of 
two departments, one for young men and the other for young 
ladies, each having a distinct head. The apartments for the 
two were on the same floor, separated by the entrance hall. 
The whole school assembled in my room for morning prayer. 
In the male department I recollect John G. Whittier, who 
about that time by his poetical effusions had awakened the 
interest of some of the best educated citizens. He was an 
earnest student and attracted much notice, young ladies think- 
ing it an honor to receive contributions from his pen for their 

albums I remember with pleasure the polite attentions 

I received from the cultivated society of Haverhill. In all my 
later teaching I recall no place where social intercourse was so 
enjoyable." 

The second preceptress of the Academy, Miss 
Mary Cranch Norton of Sharon, has left in her 
correspondence some bright and delightful glimpses 
of the Academy. She describes the meeting of the 
young ladies and young gentlemen for morning 
worship : — 

" After the young ladies were seated, oh, how I shrunk with- 
in myself when the sound as of a mighty rushing wind an- 
nounced the approach of the cavalcade, and they all entered to 
the number of thirty-three, and Mr. Carleton (the Preceptor; 
brought up the rear. To complete the tragedy he ascendea 
my throne where two large arm chairs are placed, one ot 

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which I occupied, and seated himself at my right hand, and 
there we sat in that conspicuous situation facing the whole 
assembly." 

In the important place that she was called to fill 
Miss Norton felt the weight of the responsibilities, 
and her letters betray a difiidence and shrinking 
that were due alone to her inexperience. Her sweet 
presence, sprightliness of wit and tender womanli- 
ness won the love and loyalty of all her pupils. She 
became in 1830 the wife of Col. Jacob How, and 
lived thenceforth in the old Atwood house in Cres- 
cent Place which was torn down in 1872 to make 
place for the High School building then erected. 

XXI 

The Academy became a free High School in 1841, 
but it was not established as such without the op- 
position of those who deprecated the expense. 
When Mr. Train was advocating in one of the town 
meetings a liberal appropriation for its support, 
one of the prominent citizens rose to move "as an 
economical measure that the town appropriate a 
sufficient sum to remove Mr. Train from the town." 
The statue of The Thinker that stands before the 
new High School is the tribute of a pupil, Mrs. 
Emma Gale Harris, to the memory of a long time 
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master of the school, Joseph A. Shores. From 
1856 until 1872 he governed the destinies of the 
school by ideals that sought high character, 
scholarship and manly development. Back of 
his modesty there was much firmness, and when 
necessity arose he could use the rod. A rash 
and daring but brilliant pupil who was in the later 
years of his too short life the mayor of the city and 
its most popular citizen, once in the midst of a long 
morning prayer by Mr. Shores drew a pistol 
from his pocket and fired it. The prayer did not 
halt, the master's tone was even and reverent, but 
his eyes opened for a brief moment to note the 
criminal. But when the morning services had been 
concluded the master drew a stout ferrule from his 
desk and flogged into the future head of the city a 
feeling sense of his offence. "So much of a man as 
I am," said the victim in later years, "that whipping 
made me," — and between master and pupil there 
was ever afterwards mutual love and respect. 

When I was a pupil in this school it was part of 
the discipline of the boys that each should declaim 
once every fortnight in the presence of a roomful of 
scholars. The most of us would rather have faced 
a band of Modocs than the unsympathetic, grin- 
ning host who formed our audience. At least three 
gestures were required, one with the right hand, 
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one with the left, and a full sweeping gesture with 
both hands. I have always envied the assurance 
of the youth who dumbly made the required ges- 
tures immediately after his bow, and then, the 
demanded gymnastics having been completed, re- 
cited the declamation that he had memorized. A 
long-limbed boy who was also a wit, said that it was 
unfair to the legs to give all action to the arms. So 
he prepared a declamation with appropriate 
action as follows : — 

" He looked to the right, " 

a kick with the right foot; 
" He looked to the left, " 

a kick with the left foot; 
" And he saw Phin Davis pursuing; " 

a rush with both feet to his seat. 



How odd it is, though years have sped, 
To feel the same old shivery dread 
As when in halcyon schooldays past 
My turn for public speaking came. 
I hear the master call my name; 
The long aisle stretching out before, 
Up which my fettered feet must go. 
Seems endless; and the billowy floor 
Shows threatening dangers, as of yore. 
With face that, like an oriflamme, 

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A flag of dread and terror flies, 

I make my bow and raise my eyes; 

I've reached the platform, — here I am; 

No less reluctant than before. 

When I the schoolboy's burden bore, 

And told in stammering, sing-song way, 

How Bingen's soldier dying lay; 

Or, fired with the dramatic story, 

Declaimed Bozzaris' deed of glory; 

Or took a more triumphant tone 

In Warren's " Stand, the ground's your own!' 

— And, having thus announced my text, 

Failed to recall what lines came next. 



For the dedication of the Haverhill Academy, 
April 30, 1827, Whittier wrote an ode that was 
sung to the air, Pillar of Glory. When I wrote 
the history of this school I was desirous of including 
this poem. As it was not then to be found in any 
of the volumes of his verse I asked him if he would 
furnish me a copy. With a smile he replied, ''No, 
and I hope thee'll not be able to find it, either." 
He told, however, the story of the event. *'I had 
written some verses," he said, ''which had been 
printed in the newspapers, and the committee who 
had direction of the occasion invited me to write 
an original poem for the dedication of the Academy. 
They also invited the "Rustic Bard," Robert Dins- 
more, an old Scotch farmer living in Windham, to 
read some verses . On the day of the dedication 
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a procession was formed to march through the 
streets of the town to the new building, and the 
honor of leading it was given to the two poets. 
The old Scotchman was very short and red-faced, 
with long white hair, and a very uncertain gait due 
to a very generous draught of Scotch Whiskey be- 
fore we started. I was a tall and slender Quaker 
lad, in a Quaker hat and a Quaker coat, — and 
frightened out of half my wits. A grotesque pair 
we must have been, but we delivered our verses all 
right. It was at this time, I think, that the name 
of ''Quaker Poet" was given me." 

XXII 

It is characteristic of men as they grow older to 
become eulogists of the past — the twilight gives a 
golden glow — , but, with all due respect to the 
present, I remember with gratitude and delight the 
plain living and high thinking that characterized 
the Haverhill of my boyhood and early manhood. 
The purity of character, the culture and refinement 
of the pupils who were my schoolmates in the old 
high school, the high aim of the teachers and the 
faithful supervision of the scholarly and dignified 
members of the school board, are to me full com- 
pensation for what may have been lacking of mo- 

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dern equipment, laboratory method and special- 
ization in teaching. The compliment paid to 
Haverhill by Matthew Arnold more than twenty 
years ago, when he characterized it as one of the 
two most cultured places that he had visited in the 
United States, was not undeserved. The traditions 
of Haverhill recall a succession of men of worth and 
women of high breeding who gave to the town and 
maintained for it the foundations and the reputat- 
tion of a scholarly and refined community. Its 
first high school bears now the name of that one 
of its pupils, Whittier, who gave the consecration of 
the poet's dream to the familiar scenes, river and 
lake and woodland stretch, to legend and story and 
the simple home life. The second building rose 
where once had stood the home of Harriet Atwood 
Newell, the missionary; in whose rooms the first 
Sunday school was organized, and the first charit- 
able society formed; where Arethusa Hall resided, 
and Mary Cranch Norton lived her too brief life. 
The third building covers historic ground, and no 
pupil who enters its doors should be ignorant of the 
holy and scholarly story of the place of its location. 
Not alone by the blood of the minister Rolfe is 
that ground sanctified, not alone by the devotion 
and scholarship of his successors, but by the in- 
spiring life of that aunt of President John Quincy 

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Adams who dwelt there, of whom her nephew said: 
''If the Protestant Church tolerated canonization, 
she would have deserved to stand among the fore- 
most in the calendar." That a future President of 
the United States was fitted for the senior class in 
Harvard College in the old house removed to make 
place for this latest high school building, should be 
an inspiration to the boys, but in the character, 
scholarship and influence of the aunt in whose 
family he studied may be found an example and 
model for pupils and teachers alike. ''Elizabeth 
Smith, sister of Mrs. Abigail Adams and wife of the 
Reverend John Shaw, was a very superior being. 
Cultured and refined, she did not neglect the at- 
tractions of dress, and her whole appearance was 
attractive. Of great beauty, dignity and stateli- 
ness, wearing an elaborate and queenly headdress, 
the most accomplished woman of the little world 
wherein she lived, she yet was faithful to the common 
duties and the requirements of a poor clergyman's 
wife. She aided her solitary maid in her work, 
attended to the clothing and mended the stcckings 
and minded the appearance of the little boys in the 
family, and, far from being above work, gave to it 
that dignity and fidelity that 'makes drudgery 
divine.' " She made frequent visits to Boston, meet- 
ing there the best societv, and bringing back to the 

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rural town the news, the culture and refinement of 
the city, and its latest fashions as well. Over the 
students in her family she tenderly and carefully 
watched. They idolized her. Everything con- 
nected with her lifted them up to something purer 
and better, and even when they left her immediate 
care she followed them by her correspondence, giv- 
ing them needed advice, precious from such a 
source. She always turned the conversation at 
table and elsewhere to instructive themes, and, 
familiar with the best in literature, with Shake- 
speare and Addison and Pope, she drew by her 
conversation her household to the very fountains 
of the best English thought and expression. 

It was the custom of her time to hold protracted 
meetings in aid of spiritual revival for three or four 
successive days, and at these all the ministers of the 
surrounding towns were gathered, their families 
with them. As few events but death caused a 
change of pastorate, the clergymen and their fami- 
lies became intimate with one another, and so rare 
a woman as Mrs. Shaw was held in high esteem by 
all. When her husband died in 1791, she had 
many suitors. Among these was the Reverend 
Stephen Peabody of Atkinson. As a widower he 
had consulted Mrs. Shaw about a new wife. 
''What kind of a woman do you want?" she asked. 

m' 



Of Old Haverhill 



"Oh, one just like yourself," was the gallant and 
sincere reply. Soon afterwards Mr. Peabody 
mounted his horse and was riding to visit the 
woman recommended, when he heard of the death 
of Mrs. Shaw's husband. He immediately turned 
his horse and went home. Other suitors were his 
rivals, the most energetic being the Reverend 
Isaac Smith, a cousin of Mrs. Shaw's, and the pre- 
ceptor of Byfield Academy. On one very rainy 
night each of these suitors, supposing that the 
storm would keep his rival at home, rode to call on 
Mrs. Shaw to lay at her feet himself and all his 
prospects. But Mr. Smith had to ride fifteen 
miles while Mr. Peabody had to ride only six, and 
so when the more remote suitor reached her door he 
was met by her quaint servant with the greeting, 
''You are too late, sir. Parson Peabody has long 
ago dried his coat by the kitchen fire, and has been 
sitting with Mrs. Shaw a whole hour in the parlor." 
And Parson Smith rode back the [fifteen jhopeless 
miles, and thereafter to the day of his death lived 
single and never smiling. 



XXIII 

The young John Quincy Adams came to the 
scholarly atmosphere of Parson Shaw's home from 

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a most unusual training. Born in July, 1767, he 
was not eleven years old when he accompanied his 
father, the first President Adams, on a state mission 
to France. In the seven years following he re- 
ceived not alone the instruction of the best Euro- 
pean schools but the education and culture that 
came from association with the best minds in 
France, Holland and Russia, and with such men, 
much older than himself, as Franklin and Jefferson. 
When the duties of his father carried him to Eng- 
land it was the son's choice that brought him home 
to enter the household of his aunt and prepare for 
the senior class of Harvard College. Here he 
came in the spring of 1785 and remained until 
March, 1786, when he entered the Harvard class of 
1787. Immediately after graduation he went to 
Newburyport to study law in the office of Theo- 
philus Parsons, later Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts, and in the two years' stay 
there his visits to Haverhill were frequent. His 
diary kept in those years has been published under 
the title Life in a New England Town, 1787, 1788, 
and in this are many entries relating to Haverhill. 
He was a welcome and frequent guest in the houses 
of Judge Sargeant and Sheriff Bartlett and ' 'Mar- 
chant" White, and his classmate, Leonard White, 
the son of "Mar chant" White and the brother of 
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Mrs. Bartlett, was his intimate friend. His moth- 
er's cousin, John Thaxter, who had been the private 
secretary of his father in Europe and his own tutor, 
was practicing law in Haverhill, and young Adams 
enjoyed his companionship. It is to this Mr. Thax- 
ter that the following entry in his diary refers. 
Mr. Thaxter was then a bachelor, but married a 
few weeks later Elizabeth Duncan. — 

" ( Oct. ) 22d ( 1787 ). At twelve we went to Mr. Thaxter's 
lodgings, and found fifty or sixty people heartily at work, in 
which we very readily joined them. At about two there were 
eighteen or twenty left, who sat down to a table covered with 
*big-bellied bottles.' For two hours or more Bacchus and 
Momus joined hands to increase the festivity of the company; 
but the former of these deities then of a sudden took a fancy 
to divert himself and fell to tripping up their heels. Momus 
laughed on, and kept singing until he grew hoarse and 
drowsy; and Morpheus, to close the scene, sprinkled a few 
poppies over their heads, and set them to snoring in concert. 

By five o'clock they were aU under the table except 

those who had been pecuharlycautious and two or three stout 
topers. I had been very moderate, yet felt it necessary to 
walk and take the air. I rambled with Leonard White over 
the fields and through the street till near seven o'clock. Then 
I went home with him and,after passing a couple of hours 
in chat, retired quite early to bed. " 

Mr. Adams in this diary pays high tribute to 
his friend Leonard White, who was a Member of 
Congress, 1811-1813, and for twenty-five years 
cashier of the Merrimack Bank. 

[95] 



Some Me mories 



XXIV 

To one son of Haverhill the mother town has 
given many proofs of her love and abiding remem- 
brance. The old farmhouse where John Greenleaf 
Whittier was born and where he lived through his 
boyhood and early manhood, is kept as a shrine to 
his memory; the old academy building where he at- 
tended school bears his name; his portrait hangs in 
the Public Library and in every schoolhouse; the 
**Whittier Collection" of his works, first editions 
and the literature about him, is one of the treasures 
of the Library, also; a Whittier Club twice yearly 
holds meetings in his memory, one meeting being at 
the scene of Snow-Bound in the month of June, 
the other observing the day of his birth. 

When I was a high school boy of fourteen or 
fifteen, I remember going one day into Smiley's 
bookstore and seeing a tall, spare man bending 
over the counter of books; and the friendly owner of 
the store called me to him, and said, **Do you 
know Mr. Whittier, the poet? and have you seen 
this new poem of his?" — and he opened before me 
Snow-Bound. I went home not feeling the 
earth. I had seen a poet; I had felt the clasp of 
the hand that wrote the poems that I was de- 
claiming, Barbara Frietchie, Ein Feste Burg i9t 

[96] 



Of Old Haverhill 



Unser Gott, and the triumphant Laus Deo. And 
my mother told me then in what an enchante 
land I was living; that to the river which daily I saw 
sparkling beyond the apple orchards, to the hills 
which bounded my horizon, to the old legends 
and stories of familiar places he had given 

" The light that never was on sea or land; 
The consecration and the poet's dream." 

In the plain old farmhouse that now enshrines 
the memory of the poet and the old New England 
life depicted in Snow-Bound there had lived, be- 
fore the birth of the poet, four generations of his 
ancestors of the simple confidence, the plain life 
and the pure spirituality of the Quaker faith, be- 
ginning with Thomas Whittier who came from Eng- 
land in the good ship Confidence, and built this 
house fifty years later. The family seems to have 
originated in an old town eighteen miles from 
Shrewsbury, England, where an ancient white lime- 
stone church gave its name to the hamlet. White- 
church, and also to its most prominent family. 
Then by mutations and changes in spelling the 
family name became first Whitchur in pronuncia- 
tion and later Whittier in spelling. 

I like best to approach this old house by the way 
described in ''Telling the Bees, — 

[97] 



Some Me mories 



'' Here is the place; right over the hill 
Runs the path I took ; 
You can see the gap in the stone wall still, 
And the stepping stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 

And the poplars tall; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 

And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun; — " 

through the gap in the old stone wall, across the 
little brook by the stepping stones, along the path 
leading from the brookside through the old-fash- 
ioned garden where still in season bloom the old- 
tim.e flowers, hollyhock, London pride, sweet rocket, 
bluebells, low-growing pansies and lavender and 
mint, — 

" And the same rose blows, and the same'sun glows, 
And the same brook sings as in years ago. " 



XXV 

Mr. Alfred Ordway, whose artistic pictures of 
Whittier's home gave great delight to the poet, in 
showing me a picture of the west door of the house 
which we reach by the garden path, illustrating the 
lines from The Barefoot Boy, — 

[98] 



Of Old Haverhill 



" Oh for festal dainties spread 
Like my bowl of milk and bread; 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood 
On the doorstep, gray and rude, " — 

said that be should have colored the boy's blouse 
red if he had not known that Quakers object to 
this vivid color. But Whittier, being color-blind, 
would not have been disturbed by this brightness. 
When he was a boy his mother sent him into the 
neighboring fields to pick wild strawberries, but he 
was unable to distinguish the ripe berries from the 
green leaves. 

It was to the farmer's boy, physically delicate, 
fond of reading but with few volumes to gratify his 
taste in this old home, that his first school-master, 
Joshua Coffin, brought a volume of Burns' poems, 
— a magic gift that broke through the stern envi- 
ronment and reached the fountains of song within 
him. It was Bonnie Boon and The Cottar^s 
Saturday Night and A Man^s a Man for A' That 
and Mary Morrison and To Mary in Heaven 
that reached and touched him. The tribute, 
prompted by the gift of a sprig of heather from the 
land of Burns, which Whittier paid to the Scotch 
poet is one of his tenderest poems, the tribute of the 
heart to one to whom he owed much, to whom he 
gave gratitude and love, and for whose frailties he 

[99] 



Some Me mories 



implored — as did the blessed Master for all man- 
kind — charity and forgiveness. 

"Let those who never erred forget 

His worth, in vain bewailings; 

Sweet Soul of Song! I own my debt 

Uncancelled by his faihngs! 

Lament who will the ribald line 
Which tells his lapse from duty, 

How kissed the maddening lips of wine 
Or wanton ones of beauty; 

But think, while falls that shade between 

The erring one and Heaven, 
That he who loved like Magdalen, 

Like her may be forgiven. 

Not his the song whose thunderous chime 

Eternal echoes render; 
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme, 

And Milton's starry splendor! 

But who his human heart has laid 

To Nature's bosom nearer? 
Who sweetened toil like him, or paid 

To love a tribute dearer? 

Through all his tuneful art how strong 

The human feeHng gushes! 
The very moonlight of his song 

Is warm with smiles and blushes!" 

''How do things come to thee?" asked Whittier 
one day of a friend who was a writer of stories; 
[lOo] 



Of Old Haverhill 



"Do they come in pictures?" And when she said 
that they did, "So they come to me," he remarked. 
Whittier told his friend Rantoul of the embarass- 
ments that grew out of his limited vocabulary. He 
said that in the white heat of literary production 
words failed him to such an extent that he was 
sometimes in terror lest the vision that he saw so 
completely should vanish before it could be fixed on 
paper. His conception seemed to come to him on 
fire with impatience, like some evangel which he 
must perforce deliver to mankind, but his supply of 
words was meagre and inadequate, and his fear lest 
the impassioned thought escape him unrecorded 
was at times most painful. Much of his work was 
composed fragmentarily on the backs of letters, 
leaves torn from some old account book, stray 
pieces of vagrant paper, — unfinished stanzas, parts 
of lines, bits of composition, to be wrought into a 
complete whole after many attempts and with 
unceasing pains. 

Often as Whittier walked the familiar ways he was 
so absorbed in his pictures that he did not, or would 
not, break the line of thought to speak to ac- 
quaintances. An acquaintance once jestingly ac- 
cused him of "cutting" her on the street, and with 
his sweet smile he replied, "Thee is right. There 
are only two people here that I never fail to see," — 

[lOl] 



Some Me movies 



and he mentioned two old men, both poor and one a 
cripple. The anonymous tribute of an Amesbury 
friend expresses the love and pride in which he was 
held by his neighbors : — 

" I say it softly to myself, 

I whisper it to the swaying flowers, 
When he goes by ring all j^our bells 
Of perfume, ring, for he is ours. 

Ours is the resolute, firm step, 
Ours the dark lightning of the eye, 

The rare, sweet smile, and all the joy 
Of ownership, when he goes by. 

I know above our simple spheres 

His fame has flown, his genius towers; 

These are for glory and the world, 
But he himself is only ours. " 



XXVI 

There comes to me the remembrance of a cold, 
clear day in December, 1891, his last birthday on 
earth, when a little company of friends went to call 
on him at the home of his cousin, Mrs. Cartland, in 
Newburyport. He came into the room to greet 
them with that modesty that made Holmes call him 
"the wood thrush of Essex," and with a dignity and 
serenity that touched us all into silence. The face 
was like alabaster through which an inward light 
[102] 



Of Old Haverhill 



shone, the eyes like a benediction, the voice like 
music from the Isles of Peace. Amid the gifts from 
near and far, the messages of remembrance and 
love from the honored and the great, his heart 
turned to his own, the friends from his native town, 
and he spoke with deep feeling: "It is said that a 
prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country and in his own house, but I have been 
signally honored by my dear townspeople." 

When, a year later, the snows lay over his grave 
and the people of Haverhill assembled in their pub- 
lic hall to do his memory honor, there came an 
unexpected guest whose presence demanded a place 
in the programme for which no provision had been 
made. It was soon arranged that this bardic 
guest, the last of the Hutchinsons, be allowed to 
choose his own part. When he was introduced 
he rose in all the majesty of his old age, with long 
white beard and flowing locks and flashing eyes, 
and sang as an old bard might have done that 
trumpet cry of the poet's that takes as its title 
the words of Luther's hymn, Ein feste Burg ist 
unser Gott. It brought back the Whittier of the 
flashing eye and the warring spirit, whose verse 
was mighty and eloquent in denouncing evil, and 
whose pen was the weapon with which he smote 
Wrong. 

[103] 



Some Me movies 



XXVII 

At the celebration of the two-hundred-and- 
fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Haverhill, 
in 1890, I had the honor of reading the poem, 
Haverhill^ which Whittier had written for the 
occasion. As he was too feeble to attend the exer- 
cises he invited me to come to Oak Knoll and read 
the poem to him. On that delightful visit he spoke 
particularly of the rhythm, ''We poets," said he, 
"might as well write prose if the melody of our lines 
is not kept." Although he was very deaf he was a 
most delightful listener to my reading of this poem 
and of some others that he desired me to read, and 
he rewarded me by a very pleasant compliment, 
naively adding, ''The lines sound very well; doesn't 
thee think so." 

Of those who took part in the formal literary ex- 
ercises of that anniversary — though it seems but as 
yesterday — I alone am living. If I read the dear 
lines well it was because there was love in my 
heart for the old town, a love that gave full mean- 
ing and earnestness to the prayer of the poet : — 

" Adrift on Time's returnless tide 
As waves that follow waves, we glide. 
God grant we leave upon the shore 
Some waif of good it lacked before. 

[104] 



Of Old Haverhill 



Some seed, or flower, or plant of worth, 
Some added beauty to the earth; 
Some larger hope, some thought to make 
The sad world happier for its sake. 

As tenants of uncertain stay, 
So may we live our Uttle day 
That only grateful hearts shall fiU 
The homes we leave in Haverhill. 

The singer of a f areweU rhyme, 
Upon whose outmost verge of time 
The shades of night are faUing down, 
I pray, God bless the good old town ! 




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